Halton police embrace AI in hiring, training 911 call takers

While fears over unchecked artificial intelligence (AI) make headlines, the Halton Regional Police Service (HRPS) is embracing the technology as an important tool in the hiring and training of 911 dispatchers.

HRPS says it’s the first police force in Canada to implement AI in such a fashion — using technology from American firm GovWorx to streamline the hiring process and create realistic simulations used to train 911 operators.

Halton police’s 911 communications bureau manager, Brian Dodd, told CityNews the first step is thinning the herd of candidates who apply for a job.

“It helps us find the right candidates, doing an aptitude test right now,” he said, stressing that 1,400 applicants applied for a recent job as a 911 communicator.

When it comes to the training portion, the technology can recreate a plethora of realistic call scenarios.

“You can also include things like background noises, you could put like the sound of a fire alarm, the sounds of explosions in the back, so it makes it really realistic and it really lets them hone their skills in the training room before they come into a real life environment and take those calls,” Dodd added.

HRPS already uses another AI technology called SARA AI — a program that handles non-emergency calls and helps keep the lines free when real emergencies take precedence.

“What SARA does is she helps those mundane non-emergency calls, she helps them not come into the head-set of a communicator in this room,” Dodd explained. “So she’s processing them in the background and she’s providing additional information, sending them links on how to report online, she’s transferring them to other police services or sending them text messages on how to make a report.

“Those are all calls that didn’t come into our communications centre so the win from that is that the communicators that are here are more readily available to answer the 911 emergency calls — which we are not using AI in for any reason — but it helps them answer those calls quicker.”