The BC Silver Alert criteria are adapted from other Silver Alert systems throughout North America. They are designed to identify missing persons who are particularly vulnerable, difficult to locate and who may come to harm if not located immediately.
- Person suffers from dementia, developmental disability, Alzheimer’s, Autism or other cognitive deficit (diagnosed or suspected) and has been determined to be at risk of harm because of this condition.
- Person resides in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.
(We will expand the alerting area to other parts of BC in the future) - The person is missing from their home, and has been determined to be a missing person by the police of jurisdiction.
- The person has been missing for less than 72 hours.
- Public assistance could be critical in saving them from harm.
Based on existing policies
Police forces throughout British Columbia already use a set of criteria to decide when an appeal for public assistance will be issued. They usually do this via their web site media releases. The BC Silver Alert jumpstarts that process. We scan the feeds of the various police forces in British Columbia for alerts asking for assistance that contain key words. When a media release is flagged by our software, one of our volunteers will review the alert to see if it meets the other parts of the criteria listed above. Once reviewed, the alert is posted to our web site and sent out via our Social Media and other channels.