Google Person Finder

WHAT● Google Person Finder is a web application that allows

individuals to post and search for the status of relatives or friends affected by a disaster.

● Google Person Finder is an open source web application that provides a registry and message board for survivors, family, and loved ones affected by a natural disaster to post and search for information about each other's status and whereabouts.

● Google Person Finder is written in Python and hosted on Google App Engine. Its database and API are based on the People Finder Interchange Format (PFIF) developed in 2005 for the Katrina People Finder Project.

● Person Finder runs on the Google App Engine platform, and it has been launched in over 40 languages.

WHEN/WHY● Google engineers built Google Person Finder in response

to the January 2010 Haiti earthquake in order to help those affected by the earthquake connect with their loved ones.

● In 2005, during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, multiple websites created missing person registries, so families and aid workers had to search in multiple places when looking for information.

● Google Person Finder addresses this problem by accepting data from other registries in a common format and searching over all the data

● The common format is called PFIF, and it was established by volunteers of the Katrina People Finder Project

LOOK

HOW/WHO● It is one of the tools that the Google

Crisis Response team uses. The Google Crisis Response team analyzes the scale of impact of the disaster and then determines which of its tools would be most useful for responding to the given situation.

● All data entered into Google Person Finder is available to the public and searchable and accessible by anyone. Google does not review or verify the accuracy of the data.

● Google Person Finder depends on individual users to update and remove records when no longer relevant. Users can also report spam, offensive content, or incorrect information.Itis not responsible for updating the data and does not make any guarantees about its accuracy.

Noteworthy deployments of Google Person Finder include

• January 2010: 2010 Haiti earthquake (complete within 72 hours)

• February 2010: 2010 Chile earthquake (live within one day)

• July 2010: 2010 Pakistan floods (considered a failure because people in

the affected area did not have Internet access)

• February 2011: February 2011 Christchurch earthquake (live within 3 hours)

• March 2011: 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami (live within 1 hour)

• October 2011: 2011 Van earthquake (live within 1 hour)

• April 2013: 2013 Boston Marathon bombings

• April 2013: 2013 Ya'an earthquake (live within one day)

• October 2013: 2013 Cyclone Phailin

• November 2013: Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda)

The system was tracking 202,400 names as of March 15, 2011 and more than 600,000 as of April 4, 2011.

PFIF is a data model and an XML-based exchange format for sharing data about people who are missing or displaced by natural or human-made disasters.

Google Person Finder is an open source project, hosted on Google Code at http://code.google.com/p/googlepersonfinder/

-rohith raj