TAMPA, Fla. — Parents across Florida will now have an additional resource for keeping their kids safe with the help of a free in-home fingerprinting kit.
The statewide initiative was announced on Friday by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and Football Hall of Famer Derrick Brooks on Friday in Tampa.
"Every single kindergartener in Florida will now take home with them a child ID kit in which their parents can obtain crucial identification information from physical characteristics including a photograph, fingerprints and even DNA," Moody said.
"Which parents may take and store within their home and keep among their most precious important belongs and documents that if tragedy should ever strike and a child go missing that they have access to that information in a timely way that can be helpful to law enforcement."
Moody says the kits will be free to parents and will be sent home through their school.
According to the National Child Identification Program, more than 800,000 children go missing each year in the U.S.—one every 40 seconds. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement states more than 25,000 incidences of missing children were reported to Florida law enforcement agencies in 2021.
Approximately 250,000 kits will be provided to all Florida school districts for distribution to public, private and charter schools for the parents of kindergarten students.
More information about the kits can be found here.