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AI is infiltrating every industry. On Earth, it enables scientists to drive sustainable food production. Looking up, AI helps discover new asteroids circling the planet.
But can it improve public safety and high-pressure situations?
On the ground, law enforcement and firefighters need access to real-time information to help them make informed decisions efficiently — without information overload.
AI may be able to bring more tools to police, first responders, and other critical services. We explore some early examples which are already live in the field.
Key Takeaways
- AI can save seconds, and seconds can save lives in emergency services.
- Real-time data can change reactionary policing into proactive, community-focused safety measures.
- AI complements human expertise, enabling smarter decisions in high-pressure situations.
- Transparency and ethical AI are needed to build public trust while safeguarding vulnerable communities.
- Predictive analytics can prevent equipment or infrastructure problems before they escalate.
- Real-time information sharing between agencies can help public safety.
AI as a Data Partner in Decision-Making
AI is an obvious fit for emergency services, where every second counts. Technology can help capture and then act on data effectively, cutting through any noise caused by data overload.
Hopping over to the UK, a report published on December 27, 2024, highlighted how 86% of UK residents desire greater police presence on the streets. Which is a regular call-out for most countries at most times.
But digging deeper, 88% of those working in law enforcement shared their frustrations not having information at their fingertips, in particular citing issues like switching between multiple applications, and said it affects their efficiency in policing.
90% of agencies support using AI to improve their ability to police — a staggering 55% increase over last year’s survey.
Matthew Polega, co-founder and President of Mark43, highlighted the problems caused by legacy tech in policing.
Polega’s company works with 290 public safety agencies and provides platforms that use AI to work out what information to share and when to share it, rather than traditional police systems, which often operate in silos and limit data sharing.
Polega said:
“It’s unbelievable to think Netflix or Spotify would go down for hours to make an update, yet in policing, mission-critical software still relies on legacy systems that do exactly that.
“Police officers don’t need information from two days ago; they need information for what’s happening right now.”
Polega believes that: “Real-time data sharing can be a game changer and that police forces solving crimes together should be the norm, not the exception”.
When managing the names of witnesses, victims, and minors, some will be nervous about implementing new systems. Especially when a quick online search reveals thousands of reports about government agencies’ information getting hacked.
But Polega said that most of those hacking incidents have come from on-premises systems, not systems that are up in the cloud.
He added:
“Cloud-native applications can avoid those security holes plaguing other systems. You’re able to work with hyperscalers like Amazon Web Services to make sure that the thousands of people and billions of dollars that they can throw against security get transferred over.
“Amazon is in the background. This provides the services, support, and capabilities a police force couldn’t marshal internally.”
AI in Policing Should Only Go So Far
But the fear, or challenge, with AI is that agencies must ensure systems are transparent, explainable, and used ethically to maintain public trust.
The Accountability Principles for Artificial Intelligence (AP4AI) project found that although 87% of people globally believe that AI should be used to protect vulnerable groups and detect criminals or criminal organizations, 90% expect the police to be held accountable for how they use AI and its consequences.
One area of concern is using AI for predictive policing, which attempts to forecast future criminal behavior using data-driven methods.
The concept is often likened to Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report and raises ethical concerns about profiling individuals based on their characteristics or historical data rather than evidence of intent.
The thought of untargeted scraping of facial images from the internet or CCTV footage and the creation of facial recognition databases could be a real threat in the future.
Although predictive policing is banned in the EU AI Act there is still concern that this regulation is enough to ease concerns.
But if AI should not be used to predict the future, perhaps it can cut down on the paperwork.
AI & Admin in Policing
With high-pressure scenarios like disaster response, law enforcement agencies may see AI as a solution that doesn’t replace police officers but complements their work by reducing time on reports and enabling smarter decision-making.
Panasonic Connect’s sensors and AI monitors can help predict problems — not of the criminal kind, but of the administrative kind — before they occur. Problems such as worker fatigue or equipment failure.
The sensors can monitor heart rates, fatigue, and even drooping eyes, through predictive analytics to prevent unsafe situations before they escalate.
Dominick Passanante, Vice President of Mobility at Panasonic Connect North America, said:
“You don’t wait for an incident to occur. Proactive maintenance of critical infrastructure is key.
“Seconds can mean the difference between life and death in public safety. AI helps save those seconds.”
Many mission-critical workers can feel like data is coming at them from all angles. But it’s essential to be able to capture that data and act on it.
AI enables first responders and utility workers to do less paperwork and spend more time in the field where they are most needed.
The Bottom Line
There are many ways AI can help policing. For example, AI that analyzes body-worn camera footage to write the first report from a scene — nearly instantaneously — is an excellent example.
So are uses where AI can connect police forces together without information overload, or where AI monitors the environment while officers focus on the problems directly in front of them.
What is needed is transparency in how AI works and a focus on its purpose — be it predicting risks or automating routine tasks.
But if handled correctly, it can build trust between AI, first responders and the communities they serve.
