British ColumbiaAdvocates and family members say targeted phone alerts for missing seniors with cognitive impairments could improve their chances of being found.Families argue targeted phone alerts for missing adults with dementia could improve chances they’re foundAkshay Kulkarni · CBC News · Posted: Sep 25, 2025 9:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 5 hours agoTwelve years after his father Shin’s disappearance on Sept. 12, 2013, Sam Noh is leading the push for a Silver Alert system to alert people of a missing senior and prevent deaths. (Sohrab Sandhu/CBC)Twelve years after his father went missing, a B.C. man is leading the push for an emergency alert system for cases of missing seniors with cognitive impairments.Sam Noh, whose father Shin Ik Noh went missing in Coquitlam on Sept. 18, 2013, says a so-called “Silver Alert” system would have made a difference in his father’s case.The Silver Alert system would send phone alerts if a vulnerable senior with a cognitive condition goes missing, similar to Amber Alerts.A number of advocates and family members of seniors who have gone missing say the system should be a priority in B.C., given the province’s aging population and the urgency required in missing senior cases.Sam Noh, whose father Shin went missing in 2013, says the provincial government should act and move to implement a Silver Alert system. (Sohrab Sandhu/CBC)Noh argues there’s a critical time delay between when police release information about a missing senior on social media and when the public becomes aware of it, and that the B.C. government should take the lead on creating a better system.”I’m calling on our government to implement a provincewide B.C. Silver Alert program to save families the anguish and grief of what our family went through,” Noh said.”Time for action is long overdue.”Shin Ik Noh has never been found and is presumed dead.WATCH | Shin Noh’s disappearance prompted large public search: Shin Ik Noh still missing in B.C.Search continues for a Coquitlam man suffering from Alzhemer’sNoh says his father’s case inspired a private member’s bill from the then-opposition B.C. NDP aimed at creating a Silver Alert system in B.C. in 2014.However, that bill failed.In 2020, the mandate letter for B.C.’s public safety minister under the NDP government included a call to develop a Silver Alert system — but Noh says there has been little movement on the issue since. Other families join callsA spokesperson for the B.C. Public Safety Ministry said expanding the Amber Alert system to include missing adults with cognitive impairments would be a “major step forward in how police respond to these critical cases.””The RCMP is looking into the feasibility of Silver Alerts and are awaiting the results of [a] pilot program done recently in Quebec,” they added, deferring further questions to the RCMP.A provincial RCMP spokesperson said they had nothing further to add beyond what the province had stated, and that they may be able to provide more information once the pilot program is assessed.The province deferred most questions about a Silver Alert system to RCMP. Advocates argue that phone alerts could save lives. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)Britt Moberg, a Victoria woman whose father Earl went missing in Winnipeg in December 2023 and is now presumed dead, has started a petition asking the federal government to implement a Silver Alert system.The petition, sponsored by Conservative MP Raquel Dancho, has accumulated over 4,900 signatures as of Monday.Moberg’s petition cites statistics that show that if a person with Alzheimer’s disease is not found within 12 hours of being lost, there is a 50 per cent chance they will be found injured or dead from hypothermia, dehydration or drowning.Britt Moberg, left, is seen with her father, Earl. She said a phone alert system would help in cases of missing seniors with dementia, given the urgency needed to locate them. (Submitted by Britt Moberg)”If [missing seniors] are dressed appropriately for the environment, they are not necessarily going to be attracting attention from people in the neighbourhood … and that is why having an alert to phone would be critical,” she told CBC News.”Because people don’t know what they’re seeing. They don’t know they’re seeing somebody who’s in an emergency.”In Manitoba, the provincial Missing Persons Act was amended in 2017 to include Silver Alerts.Alerts could be targetedSome advocates say a Silver Alert system could be targeted to phones in a small geographic area, as opposed to Amber Alerts, which can be sent to an entire province.Michael Coyle, a former longtime Coquitlam Search and Rescue volunteer who helped search for Shin Ik Noh in 2013, says many missing seniors are on foot and are not likely to travel far.Coyle argues the Silver Alerts don’t need to be as intrusive as Amber Alerts, but can instead serve like a notification alerting residents in a small area to be aware. (AstroStar/Shutterstock)He also says the Silver Alerts may not need to be as intrusive as Amber Alerts, and could be a notification similar to that generated by a weather app.”We can alert the public in the area where they went missing, give them specific directions, just not to search, but to be aware in their daily life and to maybe look in their outbuildings,” he told CBC News.”Because often someone with dementia will find a shed — or seek shelter under a culvert or under bushes.”Sam Noh and Coyle are among the co-founders of the the B.C. Silver Alert initiative, which started in 2014, and have worked on prototypes of the Silver Alert system.Coyle says he’s now pushing municipalities and local governments to look at implementing the system on a smaller scale, given they often have the ability to issue localized alerts in the case of emergencies like wildfires or floods.”If they can alert someone to evacuate, they could just as well alert someone that there’s a missing person nearby that they could help find,” he said.ABOUT THE AUTHORAkshay Kulkarni is an award-winning journalist who has worked at CBC British Columbia since 2021. Based in Vancouver, he is most interested in data-driven stories. You can email him at akshay.kulkarni@cbc.ca.With files from Sohrab Sandhu and Cory Correia
Families push for Silver Alert system to find missing seniors in B.C.
