Missing children messages go on 404 error pages

05.10.12

Affinity has joined the NotFound Project, a European initiative that puts pictures and biographical details of missing children on the well known 404 Not Found pages of websites.
"As parents ourselves, we are all concerned about the number of children that go missing each year and when we heard about the NotFound Project recently it seemed like an ideal opportunity for us to be able to get involved and help" commented Max Edwards, Group Managing Director.

"We are in the process of contacting all of our clients that we have produced websites for and offering to update the code on their websites for free so that their 404 Page Not Found pages will publish data about children currently missing in Europe".

Affinity has already updated their own websites with this initiative and are hoping that clients will take advantage of the offer of a free update. Clients interested in joining this initiative for free should contact Max Edwards, details at the bottom of this article.

Further Information:

Missing children messages go on 404 error pages

A European initiative is putting pictures and biographical details of missing children on the well-known 404 Not Found pages. Hosting firms, ISPs and media companies have signed up to put the information on what would otherwise be empty pages. Anyone who runs a website is being encouraged to join the initiative to raise the profile of missing children.

Snippet of code

The NotFound project has been created by Missing Children Europe, Child Focus, the European Federation for Missing and Sexually Exploited Children and several other European organisations.

While there are standard ways of setting up a 404 Not Found page, increasing numbers of websites are customising the error page to redirect web users who go astray or who visit an old page. NotFound wants sites to add a snippet of code to those customised pages so they display data about missing youngsters.

Maryse Roland, a spokeswoman for Child Focus, said a random process governed which missing child would be highlighted. "It could be a recent disappearance, or on the contrary, a child that has been missing for a long time," she said.

"This project will allow us to once again concentrate the attention on children whom we haven't heard of for many years," said Ms Roland. "These children risk falling into oblivion."

Once sites have signed up and added the code supplied by the NotFound project, every time the page is displayed it will contain information about a missing child.

Francis Herbert, secretary general of Missing Children Europe, said: "We are always looking for new communication channels to distribute missing children messages and increase the chances to bring them home."