A world-first hackathon using technology to help the Australian Federal Police (AFP) locate missing persons attracted 354 participants in 10 locations around the country last week, aiming to cast light on 12 cases of missing people.
Hosted in Canberra, the National Missing Persons Hackathon involved the AustCyber Canberra Cyber Security Innovation Node, the AFP, the National Missing Persons Coordination Centre and Trace Labs.
The Federal Police said the ethical hackers and investigators used online investigative techniques within the bounds of the law to find new leads on real missing persons’ cases in Australia.
They said the contestants gathered open source intelligence on long-term missing persons using only information that was publicly available on the internet.
Manager of the Canberra Cyber Security Innovation Node, Linda Cavanagh said the goal was to generate new leads on cases that could help the relevant police in their investigations.
“This is the first large-scale, crowd-sourced, open-source intelligence gathering of its kind in Australia for missing persons, and a first for a country to participate simultaneously in this manner,” Ms Cavanagh said.
The police said the 12 missing persons were selected from existing National Missing Person Coordination Centre cases and were investigated for leads which were then handed on to the AFP and the Coordination Centre.
Assistant AFP Commissioner, Debbie Platz said that by involving the community — in this case hackers — police hoped to solve more long-term missing person cases in a way they could not do it alone.
Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Karen Andrews said the event had been a great opportunity to use online investigative techniques and hacking skills in creative and socially useful ways.
Mrs Andrews said that each year more than 38,000 people go missing in Australia and while most are located quickly, around 2,600 are still missing after three months.
