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The Internet of Things helps to find lost children in crowded public places

Release Time:

2022-02-07

When a child goes missing in a crowded shopping mall, IoT technology can help security teams identify, locate and track the whereabouts of the missing child. Learn how malls are using smart cameras, computer vision, mapping and automated response technologies to provide extra security in public spac

It's every parent's worst nightmare: their child getting lost in a crowded shopping mall or other public place. Thankfully, in most cases, children are quickly reunited with their parents or caregivers. But the horrific minutes between finding the child missing and finding it seem like hours.

According to statistics from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCME), a child goes missing every 90 seconds. In 2019 alone, NCME assisted law enforcement and families with more than 29,000 cases of missing children. Of these, about 90 per cent were runaways under the age of 18, but others were lost under other circumstances.

digital location tracking

There are many different types of IoT technologies that can help parents keep track of their children. For example, a parent can install a mobile GPS location tracking application, such as Find My Child, on a child's smartphone to keep tabs on their child's whereabouts. Advantages of child tracking systems include helping children maintain independence while parents know they are safe.

However, children can lose or leave their phones at home, and it is not practical to equip young children with smartphones. Devices such as the Jiobit tracking system can clip onto backpacks or belt loops to help parents know where their children are. The technology could also help owners find pets, or help people keep an eye on aging parents. When the wearer leaves the designated area or may be in danger, the app will send an alert signal and provide tracking functions.

Location Tracking in Public Spaces

However, in crowded public places, young children often do not have tracking devices on them. Separation from parents can lead to high levels of panic.

Intel® Solutions Marketplace Partner iOmniscient offers a solution for this situation. One application of iOmniscient's patented artificial intelligence platform is helping security teams find lost and missing children in malls, malls and other crowded venues.

The modular building blocks of the iOmniscient platform can be combined in many ways for different purposes. Combining facial recognition with a response system enables the system to identify, track and locate individuals in public places, making it a valuable solution for quickly finding lost children.

Automatic recognition and quick response

Here's how it works: When a parent reports a child missing, security staff can use a smartphone and the iQ-Mobile app to take a photo of the parent, and the security team uploads the image to the platform's facial recognition system. Parents' faces are registered in the system's face database.

The iOmniscient platform connects to smart cameras located throughout the mall's facility and is able to quickly analyze the video at the edge. The platform did a quick search through video clips and identified images that included parents and children entering a mall together for the first time.

The system maps a child's movements in real time and shows where the child has been, as well as their current location.

iOmniscient's highly automated response system, ASAP, then sends the information to the phone of the security officer closest to the child, based on the location information from the GPS system in their smartphone. Security then took the child's photo and sent the child to the parents. According to iOmniscient, the entire process from reporting a missing person to being reunited takes only a few minutes. (compile: iothome)