Have you ever wondered how Google processes and used your data? There are various ways of how the Internet giant does: targeted ads, personalized search engine results and Google Analytics reporting. In times of natural disasters, further use for your data comes into play:
It helps you find missing people.
How it works
Enter Google Person Finder – a Google project that provides information about the status and place of a person in times of natural disasters. How does it work? If a disaster occurs, thousands of people are affected. Google will set up a special person page especially for this catastrophe.
On the data on data acquisition, a team will put together a list of people who are missing in the catastrophe, which is then uploaded to the person's website. The data is collected in Google's own database. If you have a Google account, the company already knows where to live.
Similarly, the public can also enter information about a missing person in the platform if you know someone who may be missing. You can also upload your own data yourself. How do people get information about the finder? First of all, register with the Person Person Finder and enter the name of the missing person. Google then presents the same name in the database.
Origins
The roots written in Python and hosted in Google came from Prem Ramaswani, a product engineer on Google, who, together with KA-Ping Yee, another Google engineer, gathered a team of volunteers and built a team of volunteers to build a database with missing persons in 2010.
In collaboration with the US State Department, the first person Finder app went live in three languages on January 15, 2010 – French, Haitianian Creole and English. Earlier efforts that are similar to the person Finder -app were previously built up by various media companies such as the New York Times and CNN. However, they didn't work.
The main problem with these previous efforts is that information is scattered. You can find the database of a missing person either in the data of the times or in CNN, but not in both. For example, a person can find out that your relative is missing in the CNN database, but if he looks at the version of the New York Times, he may realize that the relative has already lived and has already given his location.
Google can solve the problem here. Google is in the best position to aggregate all of this information because it is the standard search engine for most internet users.
What Google gives the unique position to get the personnel finder up and running is: you don't even have to click the search button or enter something in the search bar. It is irritated. If you are located near the disaster area, the link to the crisis office page with a person finder below the search bar should be available.
To Haiti and Tohoku – Taifun Yolanda in the Philippines
Since Haiti's earthquake, Google has launched the staff Finder in order to absorb any important catastrophe in the world.
During the earthquake of the Great Japan Tohoku in 2010, Japanese and everyone in the world can find information about who lives and who has already been found. For non-Japanese, the Tohoku side of the person finder was the next English database of mistakes and found Japanese during the catastrophe. That was in 2010.
The quick lead by November 2013, the Super -Taifun Haiyan (locally known as Yolanda) landed in the Philippines. The strong winds and heavy rains could possibly destroy the concrete houses in the central philippines. What was left after the typhoon is a trace of the destruction of more than 10,000 deaths and 10 million affected people.
After the rains have decreased, the rescue efforts have started. The country received help from nations all over the world. The local government as well as voluntary organizations such as the Red Cross have started the rescue and aid measures. The Red Cross in particular started social services, restoring family connections and persecution of services. A person who has missed a friend can call the Red Cross and the organization will then look for the missing person.
Google, on the other hand, started a dedicated finder side especially for this catastrophe. At that time, only around 600 were taken into account by the 10,000 of which were assumed that they are dead. If you have information about people affected by the storm, it is probably the perfect way to help others to help others. Now go to the side of the person Finder, enter the name of the person and indicate his status regardless of whether he is missing or has been found.
Person Finder even has a mobile version. Everyone can easily enter the name of the search person on their cell phone and send it to +16508003977.
For example, if you are looking for a person named Juan Cruz, simply enter the search Juan Cruz and send it to the number. This is very useful if you are somewhere with a limited internet connection or if you are outside the country.
After electricity and communication are cut off in the affected areas, Google Person Finder can be used to find information about the victims. The person finder is not the only project that Google created and created at times. The establishment of the Google Crisis Response page is a further cooperation in Google, which has used Google products with existing Google products to organize relevant information and make it more accessible in times of crisis. In order to further illustrate this, we can see the crisis' word page for Taifun Yolanda:
As you can see from the illustration above, the crisis office page combines the most important sources in relation to the catastrophe. It contains a description of Wikipedia, a map of the affected place as well as the locations of auxiliary aids and protection. It even contains links to organizations where you can donate.
Perhaps the most important feature are the buttons for social shares that the page can share on a person's social networks.
Google Person Finder and the crisis reaction project are just a few of the wills about how technology and internet can help humanity help to help other people. If Google is Google, it is definitely easier to find the information you need by only entering keywords in the search bar. However, the person finder goes beyond the search. It is a way to find what you need on the Internet, not only for humans, but also for ways to help the victims concerned.
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