Silicon Valley’s role in a surprising missing-person case trend

Bischoff said that while most missing youth cases are runaways or custody-related, there’s a growing concern about online enticement, where children are lured away from home by adults, often under false pretenses. — Pixabay

It has been nine years since 15-year-old Pearl Pinson vanished on her way to school in Vallejo. For her father, James Pinson, the pain remains as fresh as the morning his daughter never came home.

"The date etched in my mind forever, and that was the last time anybody saw her," Pinson said.

Lynn Ching understands. Three years before Pearl went missing, Ching’s 19-year-old son, Sean Sidi, said he was going to a nearby park in San Francisco, and hasn’t been seen since, leaving her "trying to make sense of the whole thing".

Missing persons in California

Last year, an average of 163 people a day were reported missing across the United States, 19 a day in California and three a day in the Bay Area. But there are encouraging signs that technology – and efforts to curb its misuse by those who would use it to lure and prey upon the vulnerable – may be making such heartbreaking missing persons cases a little less common.

Nationally, the rate of missing person reports per 100,000 people has fallen 21% from 2014 to 2024, according to an analysis by the Bay Area News Group. In California, it’s dropped 23%, and in the nine-county Bay Area, the decline is even more pronounced, down 38% over that period.

The decline in missing persons reports has primarily been those involving children under age 18, which account for three out of four missing person reports nationally and two out of three in California over the last 10 years. At the national level, reports of kids under age 18 going missing declined 24%, while those involving adults rose 6%. In California, missing children reports have fallen 28% while missing adult cases are up 5%.

San Jose Police Public Information Officer Sgt. Jorge Garibay said some of the downward trend since 2017 had to do with the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and activity restrictions that continued for the next couple of years. But the trend has continued since, and Garibay said that technology also has improved reunification efforts, often shortening the time a person remains missing and potentially reducing the volume of formal reports.

"This includes public-facing platforms like social media, where calls for help or awareness posts can quickly gain traction and mobilise community support," Garibay said.

Systems such as CHP’s Endangered Missing Advisories and Santa Clara County’s AlertSCC offer extra layers of outreach, sending geotargeted alerts to the public when time is critical. GPS capabilities in smartphones and vehicles also allow families or caregivers to track movement or share location data in real-time, sometimes enabling reunification well before law enforcement intervention is even required.

"Technology – in its many forms – can be a significant factor in driving more timely and effective outcomes, and these tools represent meaningful shifts in how quickly information can move, how communities can respond, and how individuals can take a more active role in resolving or even preventing a missing person incident," Garibay said.

Improved mental health care is also helping reduce the number of missing person reports, Garibay said.

But while there’s been a drop in missing person reports, the percentage reported missing who remain unaccounted for each year – 11% of reported cases in 2024 across the US – has seen little change. It’s up 21% nationally from a decade ago, but down 9% since a peak in 2019.

Between 2014 and 2024, the actual number of missing cases in the Bay Area exceeded 213,600. Of those, 201,300 were located – 94%. Most counties maintained recovery rates above 95%, particularly for children. Santa Clara County consistently approached a 98% recovery rate. However, San Francisco experienced a decline, with adult recovery rates dropping to around 80% by 2024.

Law enforcement agencies across the Bay Area acknowledge the challenges in missing persons investigations, particularly in large, densely populated cities.

"In general, SJPD has seen an increase in adult cases related to the unhoused population," said Garibay, noting that mental health struggles, drug use and voluntary absences often complicate such cases.

"Although a majority of missing person cases are voluntary and do not involve foul play, SJPD detectives take all cases seriously and work diligently to ensure the person is returned home or contact is made with their loved ones," Garibay said.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a private nonprofit that supports searches for minors, has been assisting with Sean Sidi’s case since 2013 and has supported the family with a case manager and forensic tools, including age progression images.

John Bischoff, a NCMEC vice president, said that while most missing youth cases are runaways or custody-related, there’s a growing concern about online enticement, where children are lured away by adults, often under false pretenses. While technology has proven helpful at locating missing people, it has also been a tool for people with bad intentions to prey on young people.

"We’re seeing a lot more children communicating with people they don’t necessarily know online, which is a problem," Bischoff said. "That’s where they may be communicating with someone online, and while it looks like they left home on their own, they may have left under false pretenses. They may have gone to meet someone, not realising that person has bad intentions. It’s an issue we’re seeing."

NCMEC conducted an analysis of the 476 children reported missing to NCMEC between 2020 and 2023 who were enticed online. California had 35 cases, ranking second, while Texas had the most missing cases among the states, 68.

Data show that online enticement cases tend to involve younger victims, with a higher share of children under 15, especially those 13 and younger, compared to other missing child cases. The report indicated that most children were enticed online by conversations with adults on social media sites, messenger apps and gaming sites. The five most common sites used to lure children are Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Discord and TikTok.

Sophie Vogel, a spokesperson for Meta, said that last September, Meta launched teen accounts on Instagram with built-in protections – they’re private by default, have strict messaging limits, and users under 16 need a parent’s permission to change any of these settings. And in April, Meta announced it is rolling out similar teen accounts for Facebook and Messenger, with additional safety restrictions. Other platforms did not respond to a request for comment.

The NCMEC report showed that from 2020 to 2023, instances of online enticement decreased on Instagram and Facebook each year, while they increased on other platforms like Snapchat, Discord and TikTok.

"That’s something we think aligns with the protections we’ve implemented over the past five years," Vogel said. "We’ve done a lot to prevent unwanted contact between adults and teens. For a long time, we haven’t allowed adults to initiate private messages with teens unless the teen has already followed them. That’s an important protection."

For families agonising over those still missing, they are left hoping that periodic reminders about their loved ones one day will trigger a response, and if not a reunification, at least some answers.

"We still hope we’ll get that call, we still hope that we’ll get that tip so that Sean comes to our door and shows up alive," said Ching, who reported her son Sean missing May 21, 2013.

Pearl was grabbed off a pedestrian bridge on May 25, 2016, by a man with no known connection to her who died in a shootout a day later in Santa Barbara, leaving no clue to her whereabouts.

Last month on the anniversary of her abduction, her family and friends gathered at the bridge to plead for help finding her.

"I fought for the answers for nine years," Pinson said, "but we’ll continue searching for her." – Silicon Valley, San Jose, Calif./Tribune News Service