Ohio Homeland Security Releases New Suspicious Activity Reporting System
ZANESVILLE, OH – Ohio Homeland Security recently announced the launch of a new suspicious activity reporting system that utilizes artificial intelligence to gather information on potential threats of violence.
Andy Wilson, the Director of the Ohio Department of Public Safety, says the Safeguard Ohio App uses AI to help users to provide as much information as possible to help law enforcement officials investigate.
He says the AI they use in the app is non-generative meaning it doesn’t learn more as you talk with it; Wilson says it just helps to prompt you through the different questions and scenarios that you would like to report.
“We use that information to assess the validity of the threat.” Wilson said. “So our old system was more of a manual system where it was a static form on our website, you could come on and fill it out if you had seen something that was suspicious. We were relying wholly on you to fill out the information and if for one reason or another you didn’t get enough in there or you left something out, if you did that anonymously, there’s no way for us to do any follow-ups with you.”
Wilson says the AI helps to weed out the real reports from common everyday occurrences through some of the questions it asks.
He says users can select from up to 8 categories when reporting a tip, including drug-related activity, human trafficking, terrorism, school threats, and crimes against children.
“You see case after case where somebody saw a manifesto, or saw somebody talking or making threats online, or talked to somebody who was clearly mentally unhinged and talking about violence or doing an act of violence, especially to a racial, ethnic, or religious group.” Wilson said. “We want you at that point to utilize this app to just report something to us, again we say this; Governor DeWine says this all the time. If you see something, say something and if you say something, we’ll do something about it.”
If there’s any suspicious activity you’d like to report, you can head to the Department of Public Safety’s website.
