National sex-offender database

MySpace today donated the US’s first national sex-offender database, which it built with identity verification company Sentinel Tech Holdings, to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. The database “combines close to 50 US state registries in an aim to help police keep track of an estimated 600,000 convicted sex offenders,” Reuters reports. Ernie Allen, CEO of the National Center, said his organization “will use the new database to help law enforcement in investigations.” The Adam Walsh Act, which President Bush signed into law last summer, called for a national sex-offender database, but it would likely have taken months, if not years, for the federal government to create. Internet News’s story led with this: “During the four years that Missouri teen Sean Hornbeck was abducted, he was sometimes able to visit social networking sites. Could a database like the one [unveiled] today have helped speed Hornbeck's return, or kept him safe? Ernie Allen … told InternetNews.com he believes so."