\n<\/p>\n
The police received about 1,300 reports of missing persons annually between 2021 and 2025, with the majority of vulnerable missing persons found within the day, said Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam.<\/p>\n
Shanmugam, who is also Coordinating Minister for National Security, was responding to a parliamentary question by MP Fadli Fawzi (Aljunied GRC), who asked how many missing persons have been reported since 2021 and the number of such persons who were found within a month.<\/p>\n
He also asked if the Government had assessed the feasibility of using the new SG Alert system<\/a> to send location-based notification of missing persons to mobile phone users in the vicinity of where they were last seen.<\/p>\n In his written reply, Shanmugam said the police do not track the time taken to locate a missing person as this can vary significantly from case to case.<\/p>\n He added that the police will accord priority to vulnerable missing persons, including young children, elderly persons and persons with intellectual disabilities.<\/p>\n “The large majority of vulnerable missing persons are found within the day,” the minister said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Turning to the use of SG Alert, Shanmugam reiterated that the system is designed to expeditiously alert the public to time-sensitive and life-threatening emergencies.<\/p>\n “When the public receives a SG Alert, it is to trigger to them to immediately take protective and life-preserving actions,” he said.<\/p>\n The minister cautioned that “frequent and overuse” of the system for a wide variety of scenarios may instead desensitise the public to its alerts and the sense of urgency it should be associated with.<\/p>\n He assured the MP that the police have well-established procedures to locate missing persons, including appealing for information from the public where appropriate.<\/p>\n “Such appeals are published through various channels, including social media,” Shanmugam added.<\/p>\n [[nid:735106]]<\/p>\n