SALT LAKE CITY — Utah officials have halted text Amber Alerts after an alert went out early Sunday morning without information attached.
The incident occurred when South Salt Lake police issued the alert about 3:30 a.m. using the state’s Wireless Emergency Alert system in the search for a missing 4-year-old girl, who was found later unharmed Sunday morning.
The girl had been taken from the home where she was staying by her mother, who does not have custody, said Danielle Croyle, South Salt Lake police spokeswoman.
The Bureau of Criminal Identification disseminated the information prepared by the South Salt Lake Police Department and had a “technical difficulty” that caused the alert to be sent to Utah residents without the information attached to it, Croyle said.
While Amber Alerts usually contain suspect, victim, vehicle and other relevant information, the one sent out overnight simply stated “UT AMBER Alert.”
Local jurisdictions have the authority to send out text alerts using the Wireless Emergency Alert system, which is owned by the state.
The incident has prompted the Department of Public Safety to pause future texted Amber Alerts while a review of the system and “its history in Utah” takes place. Other emergency alerts will still get sent out, according to the Utah Department of Public Safety.
“I’m sorry for those that were awakened early this morning. An empty Amber Alert at 3:30 am in a noncustodial interference case should never happen. We’ve instructed Public Safety to pause alerts to investigate and make changes necessary to prevent it from happening again,” Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox tweeted later Sunday morning.
When Sunday morning’s Amber Alert went out, there was a software issue that made only the header to the alert show up, the Department of Public Safety said in a statement. The issue wasn’t immediately caught by officials because they can’t test the alerts before sending them out. Some phones got the alert multiple times.
A similar issue occurred twice late last year with Amber Alerts, officials said.
“The code for these alerts has been updated to ensure both the header and the message are sent in the future,” officials said in the statement.
“The Wireless Emergency Alert system can be very useful, however, not when there isn’t any information attached. Therefore, I apologize and have put a moratorium on the AMBER use until further notice,” Department of Public Safety Commissioner Jess Anderson tweeted.
Contributing: Jason Tulin