China's first platform on missing children kickstarts crowdfunding

Ruijie Xunzi, China's first platform devoted to constructing a system for finding missing children kickstarted crowdfunding on Tuesday, with supporters hoping to raise at least one million yuan from the public during its initial stage.

In the United States, 97.7 percent of missing children are returned home, but the rate is far lower in China.

Founder Li Jie says the platform will draw from U.S. practices, especially those of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Code Adam and AMBER Alert.

A national information database for missing children as well as a biological information equivalent for Chinese children will be set up, Li says, adding that they will contain basic information regarding facial characteristics, voice prints, fingerprints, as well as pupil and DNA information.

In future, social networking platforms publishing information regarding missing children will be integrated into the system. When a child is returned home, all information will be immediately and permanently deleted.

The platform will make use of facial recognition technology to provide a fast check of photos uploaded by Web users, comparing them to those stored in the database in order to provide more clues.

Big data analysis will also be used to help dig for information about lost children and target suspects.

In addition, the platform will cooperate with chain furniture stores to pilot a system similar to Code Adam.