Sheriff's Office to Participate in New Child Identification Project

      Sheriff Wayne Youell said that he is looking forward to participating in a new national program unveiled today that will help identify and locate missing children and adults through the use of iris biometric recognition technology.

     Sheriff Youell said, “I commend the Nation’s Missing Children Organization and National Center for Missing Adults (NMCO) for developing The Children’s Identification and Location Database (CHILD) Project and I look forward to participating in this effort to protect the children and families of Mason County.” Sheriff Youell continued, “I congratulate them on the formal kick-off of they system today in Phoenix and look forward to bringing this technology to Mason County.”

     The sheriff’s office is currently working with NMCO to secure funding for the CHILD Project through grant applications and hopes to receive the system, at no cost to the taxpayers of Mason County, in the near future.

     Youell explained that, “The CHILD Project is a secure network and registry available to law enforcement and social service agencies across the nation that is designed to give authorized users access to data that can positively identify children in seconds. Iris recognition biometric technology positively determines the identify of an individual by capturing a high-resolution digital photograph of an individual’s iris. The technology can tell the difference between twins or even an individual’s right and left eye. The technology is non intrusive and an image of the iris is captured by simply looking into the camera.”

     Kym Pasqualini, President and CEO of the Nation’s Missing Children Organization (NMCO) said, “I am honored to have Sheriff Youell’s support for this unique and innovative program. With Sheriff Youell’s help, we will fill an important gap in our nation’s ability to quickly, and positively, identify missing children and adults.”

     According to the U.S. Department of Justice studies, on average, more than 2,000 children are reported missing every day across the nation and there are currently over 47,000 active missing adult cases. Ms. Pasqualini continued, “We are honored that Sheriff Youell has decided to participate in this program and are sure that his commitment will make a difference in our effort to reunite missing children with their families.”

     Participation is entirely voluntary, just as it is now with fingerprints and photo ID card programs.

     “Today marks the official beginning of this important project,” said Sheriff Youell. “It is my hope that over the coming years that every sheriff in the nation will have access to one of these systems so that we can help identify, locate, and reunite missing individuals with their families.”

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