Ohio Homeland Security (OHS) has released a new technology platform that enables residents to report suspicious activity on an interactive, online site which lets them upload supporting media like photos or video at the same time. Officials said the new platform, known as Safeguard Ohio, is a significant improvement from the days of simply downloading and filling out a static form.
The new platform, which can be accessed from its prominent place on the main page of Ohio’s homeland security website, uses technology from Vigiliti to guide users through a range of questions whose nature and content match the type of incident a person is reporting, whether it is in the area of finance, human trafficking, guns or elsewhere. Cyber incidents, the platform and the OHS main page caution, should be reported to the Ohio Cyber Integration Center instead.
The system asks “the standard canned questions,” but also more probing ones, based on the information being provided by the person reporting the incident, Mark Porter, OHS executive director, said.
“We’re all human, and you forget to ask, maybe you forgot to ask about tattoos, or maybe you forgot to ask about what glasses were they wearing?” Porter said, recalling his own work as an analyst interviewing someone reporting an incident or something they believed could be suspicious.
“I won’t say this is better than an analyst, but I know that we’re going to get absolutely everything,” he said, adding, “the chat will not stop until you say you are done.”
The reporting portal retains the information for 30 days and it is then added to a case management system, officials said. The information can also be shared with other law enforcement agencies like local police departments.
Prior to the launch of Safeguard Ohio, the state received about 30 reports of suspicious activity a month. Since it debuted with a soft launch in August — with virtually no press — the number of reports has already about tripled, Porter said.
“We were looking at our numbers,” he said. “We wanted them to improve.”
The technology underpinning the platform was designed to allow AI technology to “guide the conversation and pull out the critical details,” Lisa London, Vigiliti CEO, said.
“The chatbot uses intuitive guided conversation to automatically ask the right follow-up questions, the ‘who, what, when, where, and why,’ without putting pressure on the person reporting,” she said via email. “That means analysts aren’t chasing incomplete leads; they’re getting richer, more actionable intelligence right from the start.”
The threshold that elevates information to the “actionable” level often depends on a range of factors, Porter said, indicating the more detail the report contains is often what establishes “actionable intel, rather than just plain information.”
“The depth of the questioning and the more reports we get are going to increase our numbers of actionable intel and information,” he said.
Submitting suspicious information to the proper authorities often provides police or others the opportunity to thwart a criminal act, London said, noting 93 percent of violent acts show behavioral warning signs beforehand.
“We see that as an incredible opportunity to enhance public safety by making it easier for citizens to speak up,” she said.
The new platform, with its ease of use and ability to upload images, video and audio, is expected to appeal to a wider cross-section of residents, what Porter described as the “40 and under crowd,” who are more naturally inclined to use digital devices and government services. It is also available in 10 languages. Persons filing the reports can use their name, or file anonymously.
This, Porter said, “is just taking, ‘see something, say something,’ and then ‘send something,’ making it more relevant to today.”
