Emergency service innovation doesn’t always arrive with lights flashing 

High hopes for new tech

Over the last decade, police forces and fire and rescue services have experienced significant change. There are fewer crimes and fewer fires, but the volume of 999 calls, 101 non-emergency calls, the complexity of incidents and the pressure on officers and first responders are all rising. With AI-enabled crime and hoaxes now on the horizon, digital innovation is being touted as the solution to the challenges ahead.

The policing white paper, for example, calls for every force to become data-driven and “to adopt the latest technology”. To the casual reader, it might appear that a big bang is needed because the current technology hasn’t changed in decades. Or that the ‘newness’ of any future solution correlates to the scale of the benefit. Neither is true.

Emergency service innovation is all around

I’ve worked with police and fire and rescue organisations for more than 20 years, and there’s never been a time when they weren’t data-driven. In fact, finding ways to give their teams the right information at the right time has always been a top priority.

And although they may have used our solutions for some time, those systems are far from static. Their evolution is now anchoring a powerful ecosystem that helps our customers work more efficiently, work faster, and work better with others in keeping communities safe.

Little bots are having a big impact

Our Robotic Process Automation tool, NEC Automate, is now automating a host of tasks, including ingesting crime reports from Single Online Home submissions. By extracting data from emailed PDFs, creating an incident in ControlWorks, our Control Room solution, and automatically triggering searches for related data in the records management system, it enables crimes reported by digital means to be dealt with in the same way as calls into the control room.  Our AI-led Dispatch Assistant can help ease the pressure on operators by speeding up decision-making and assuring policy/procedural compliance but keeping them in control and Large Language Models (LLMs) are now capable of reviewing each and every voice call and written message, in real time, to help identify not just repeat calls but also patterns of speech or sentiment, alerting call handlers to high risk contact and enabling the right response to tackle, for example, violence against women and girls.

They are just a couple of examples of cost-effective innovation that we are delivering to help keep organisations fully focused on protecting communities. Biometrics is another.

Biometrics technologies are speeding things up

Our facial recognition software has been used by police forces for some time to deliver game-changing results. Earlier this year, the Metropolitan Police released the results from a trial in Croydon where 15 fixed cameras were sited in one ward. It led to 103 arrests – a third of which were for offences against women and girls – and a 12% drop in overall crime.

The recent judicial review is proof that the deployment of a proven and ethical solution for Live Facial Recognition can deliver significant benefits for public safety. We will continue to support police forces across the UK in the rollout of this vital crime-fighting technology.

The core systems the force uses are still in place, but they are connecting new tools all the time.

The same is true for fire and rescue services, where better ways to connect and share existing data with other agencies has the potential to save lives.

New apps are simplifying multi-agency working

All control rooms know how hard it is to coordinate the response to a major incident. In the case of a fire in a high-rise building, operators need to direct multiple crews while also managing contact with other agencies on the ground.

Our Fire Survival Guidance app gives everyone involved access to the same information on building layouts, known vulnerabilities and the instructions the occupants have been given. By avoiding confusion, preventing duplication of effort and sharing information on live rescues as they happen, each service can work together to deliver the best possible response.

User-first thinking is guiding development

Our product roadmaps are full of technology enhancements, but our approach is always user-first. When we’ve introduced AI, it’s there not for its own sake but to add value to the people it serves. For example, by identifying the language spoken by a 999 caller and providing instant translation, it helps operators to provide the same level of service to everyone.

We’re also innovating how our solutions present information to their users, following the principle of progressive disclosure to avoid the cognitive overload call handlers know only too well. And we’re connecting our facial recognition and control room solutions so that officers don’t need to waste time relaying alert information verbally before an incident is created.

Innovation isn’t one size fits all

Innovation is one of our core values, and you see it every day in the way we work with each other and with our customers. Sometimes, our innovation results in whole new systems, but often it lies in clever connections and new ways of working that help each user to perform their role more easily.

Technology is always evolving, and the pace of change will certainly be turbocharged by AI. But ‘new’ isn’t better by default. It must stay grounded in the daily realities of the officers and staff who use it to keep us safe.
__ 

Steve Ainsworth is executive director for public safety at NEC Software Solutions