The Ministry of Interior has created a new integrated search procedure for ‘missing children’ and has set up a new hotline, telephone number 116000.
A new database provides for the automatic checking of details of the missing person to information already stored relating to corpses and unidentified human remains using such data as physical characteristics, tattoos, scars, dental anomalies, fingerprints and DNA.
The new hotline will be managed by a non-governmental body (ONG) with a strict protocol regarding handing over details to the police. The hotline is primarily a welfare system as opposed to a police system, hence it is under independent control.
Similar systems, using the number 116000, already operate in other EU countries such as Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Portugal and Rumania.