Police to invest in AI-based emergency support system

Artificial intelligence is on the way to help out police officers pinched for time, as they are overloaded with filing reports and handling disputes on the scene simultaneously.

The National Police Agency said Thursday that it will invest some 7 billion won ($6.2 million) in government contributions to develop the AI-based 112 Emergency Decision Support System by 2024.

Currently, the city and provincial police departments’ integrated situation rooms receive an average of 19 million 112 emergency reports annually.

Major reports direct orders to each police station, and general reports are forwarded to the police station firsthand, where the station delivers the details of the incident to its department, district or local police station.

As for the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, the integrated situation room is operated by four groups of 40, for a total of 160 employees. When reports are allocated to its department and district, the designated police officer must arrive at the scene within three minutes of it being received.

The National Police Agency expects that once the 112 Emergency Decision Support System is developed, AI will analyze calls based on the current law and manual database to provide optimal on-site situational information to dispatched police officers.

For instance, when an incident occurs, it is likely that several similar reports will be received around the same time. The person in charge of the situation room at the moment must collect and analyze different reports, such as “The building seems to be shaking,” or “I heard a neighbor screaming for help,” but there are cases where time is tight, and inevitably, mistakes can be made in compiling information and assigning tasks.

Even if police officers are dispatched to scenes of minor incidents, they should be familiar with basic civil and criminal laws in advance, which often happens to not be the case, since related laws can be complicated and get mixed up.

As a result, depending on the individual police officers, they may respond poorly or overzealously.

A police official commented, “The goal is to quickly and accurately deliver analysis using AI to the police officers, who have to arrive at the scene within three minutes and provide response guidelines and related legal information for different types of incidents.”

A police officer based at a local station in Seoul’s Mapo-gu said, “Even for this coming holiday, we expect many cases that will be a race against time,” adding that AI technology can be a useful tool for communicating efficiently with fellow officers and the public.

By Kim Hae-yeon (hykim@heraldcorp.com)