As a result of the reallocation of funding from the European Union (EU) to mitigate the consequences of Covid-19, EUR 1.5 million was allocated to the Information Centre of the Ministry of the Interior from nearly EUR 500 million. They will be directed to the development of innovative solutions, mainly in the field of artificial intelligence. The solutions presented in the project will help speed up and improve the various phases of day-to-day work in the Ministry and under its supervision - introduction of speech recognition technologies, virtual assistants (chatbots), geographic map solutions, predicated analysis solutions and others. Innovation projects will involve local companies, such as language-based artificial intelligence technologies, in cooperation with the home company Tilde, thereby investing EU funding in support of local businesses and helping them recover from the Covid-19 crisis.
“With symbolic government support and limited resources for internal security, we are on track to make a significant breakthrough in the quality of police investigations and in the digitisation of the sector. One of my priorities, when I became Minister, was to modernise the day-to-day work of the services so that citizens of Latvia can receive faster and better security services. In the current plan, I would like to highlight, in particular, two solutions related to artificial intelligence: firstly, a language tool that will transform audio files into a text format, recording by the police at the event sites, questioning and meetings of criminal proceedings, and secondly, a machine learning tool that will allow predicting criminal offences and fire risks based on historical information, " states Minister of Interior Sandis Girgens.
In general, the information centre will carry out over 10 projects of varying size. Speech recognition technologies will provide a document included in the employee duties of different departments of the Ministry of Interior, e.g. automated conditioning of protocols (in dictation mode), and automated transscribbling of audio files (meeting audio recordings, interrogations, and other types of interviews) created and obtained by different working processes, which will allow for higher efficiency and significantly reduced time needed to produce documents by transforming audio recordings into a text format. An integrated multilingual translation platform will allow smooth communication with foreign linguists, avoiding the involvement of interpreters. A considerable amount of resource savings is expected, avoiding lengthy discussions on written paper documents to be prepared.
An essential solution for the reduction of criminal offences will also be an analytical model for machine training, which will use the data at the disposal of the Ministry of Interior, which will allow operational staff to familiarise themselves with actual and predictable information on the level of crime, based on historical information. This data will be able to be displayed on the map and used in the day-to-day work of the operational services.
There will be introduced virtual assistants that will ensure effective support for staff and citizens of the Ministry of Interior, faster access to information and services provided by different departments, and optimization of human resources. Virtual assistants will be able to process personalized requests for citizens and employees of Ministry of Interior in 24/7 mode, register problem applications, and provide answers to frequently asked questions in several languages.
This will modernise the geographic information system platforms at the disposal of the Information Centre of the Ministry of the Interior by allowing new, public-friendly solutions to the geographic information system. Through a single platform, card solutions will be available for both the intended use and the needs of the public. It is planned to significantly improve the map of already existing illicit alcohol marketing sites, where it is possible for citizens to inform the police about illegal trade in alcohol, cigarettes or narcotics.
Financing will also be channelled into the development of a digital solution for the provision of physical access and security controls to the information technologies of the Ministry department, as well as the purchase of unmanned aircraft, which will allow monitoring in the airspace and transfer data online to the coordination units.
Prepared by:
Beata Jonite
Minister of the Interior Councillor for Communications. Mob.: 28351588
E-mail: beata.jonite@iem.gov.lv