'Gwanak-gu Missing Children Real-Time Tracking Control System' Wins Prime Minister's Award at Government Innovation Championship

Received the Prime Minister's Award in the 'Digital Government' Category... The Only One Among All Local Governments Nationwide
Nation's First Implementation of IoT-Based 'Real-Time Missing Child Tracking and Control System' Highly Praised for Preventing Child Disappearances and Enabling Rapid Response

The ‘Real-time Missing Child Tracking and Monitoring System,’ first introduced nationwide by Gwanak-gu, Seoul (Mayor Park Jun-hee), was honored with the Prime Minister’s Award on the 14th at the ‘2024 Government Innovation Championship’ hosted by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.

The ‘2024 Government Innovation Championship’ (formerly the Government Innovation Best Practices Competition) is organized by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to actively discover excellent innovation cases from central government, local governments, and public institutions, share their achievements, and strengthen the government’s innovation capabilities.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety selects outstanding cases in three categories: ▲Government Preparing for the Future ▲Government Solving Problems ▲Government Working Digitally, and the final champion is chosen through a public vote.

This year, out of a total of 647 cases submitted by central ministries, local governments, and public institutions, 13 cases advanced to the finals.

Notably, Gwanak-gu was the only autonomous district in Seoul to reach the finals. In particular, it was the only basic local government nationwide selected in the ‘Government Working Digitally’ category, making the achievement even more meaningful.

Gwanak-gu’s ‘Real-time Missing Child Tracking and Monitoring Service’ was highly evaluated for its ability to prevent children from wandering off during outdoor activities at daycare centers, thereby preventing disappearances, and for its capability to locate a lost child within an average of 10 minutes.

As a UNICEF Child-Friendly City, the district has been continuously building various infrastructures and advancing services to prepare for the approximately 20,000 child disappearances that occur annually.

First, since 2021, the district has developed and operated the nation’s first beacon-based child departure alert service app called ‘Daycare Smart Guardian.’

The ‘Smart Guardian App’ is connected to a beacon inside the child’s backpack and sends departure alerts every 5 seconds if the child moves beyond a certain distance from the teacher. Additionally, in case of a child’s disappearance, teachers can easily and conveniently report the missing child through the mobile app.

Notably, this app is linked to the ‘Gwanak-gu Smart Monitoring Center,’ which manages over 6,500 closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, enabling real-time response to missing child situations.

Furthermore, the district has installed beacon scanner devices on local CCTV poles to operate a ‘Beacon Detection System’ that transmits children’s location information to the monitoring center in real time, which has been fully operational since this year.

Currently, this service is provided to 68 daycare centers and approximately 3,100 children.

The district also conducts ‘Monitoring Center Staff Simulation Training’ twice a month to prepare for actual missing child situations, resulting in an average discovery time of 10 minutes for missing children. This is significantly faster than the 3-hour golden time set by the National Police Agency.

The ‘Real-time Missing Child Tracking and Monitoring System’ was also selected as an exemplary case of proactive administration in Gwanak-gu in 2022.

Mayor Park Jun-hee stated, “We will continue to build and advance missing prevention infrastructure to realize a ‘Smart and Safe City Gwanak’ where all residents can live with peace of mind.”