On July 18, 2024, Belleville Police Service Board became the first police service in Canada to approve the use of Axon DraftOne, a program that uses OpenAI’s ChatGPT on Microsoft Azure to generate first drafts of police reports from body worn camera and dash camera recordings as well as officers’ electronic notes after an incident.
The stated goal of the software is to reduce officer time spent on paperwork by using AI to create initial drafts of reports from video footage and is used by many municipal police forces in the US.
Axon DraftOne Pilot Project
Moved by Mayor Ellis
Seconded by Ms. HarndenTHAT the Belleville Police Services Board authorize the Belleville Police Service to participate in the Axon DraftOne Pilot Project, until December 2024, at no cost to the Service.
Acting Chief Barry shared that the existing dictation system has been in place since 2012 and has become cumbersome, creating a consistent backlog of reports waiting to be transcribed.
Mr. O’Brien voiced his support of this pilot project.
Belleville Police Service Board
The 6 month free trial ended on December 2024, after which a report providing analysis of the project and the costs/benefits was set to be provided to the board. This report hasn’t been made publicly available.
How DraftOne works
AI-generated police reporting tools rely on natural language processing and machine learning technology to transform recorded audio into draft narratives. Typically, audio from body-worn cameras or other recording devices is uploaded to a system where speech recognition software converts it into text. Then, pre-trained language models use this transcription as the foundation to generate a narrative resembling a traditional police report. The draft report is organized using algorithms that identify and categorize key details on subjects such as the individuals involved,
Fair and Just Prosecution
the actions described, and the incident’s context. Notably, these algorithms are proprietary to the vendor and remain inaccessible to law enforcement and other stakeholders in the criminal legal system. Officers are then tasked with reviewing these drafts, making necessary edits, and verifying accuracy before final submission.
Belleville Police leadership support use of AI-generated police reports
The Belleville Police Service has been utilizing its current dictation system (Dictaphone) since 2012.
The current process involves an officer dialing into the system and dictating a report over phone. The call recording goes into a queue whereby one of the four full time transcribers picks up the call and then proceeds to manually type up the report, link the involved persons, and attach the report into our current records management system. This system has proven to be extremely inefficient and labour intensive. We currently sit with a queue of approximately 750 reports waiting to be transcribed and are two months behind in our transcription process. The system we currently use is no longer supported by the vendor and will need to be replaced in 2025.
In 2021, the Belleville Police Service commenced searching for a replacement solution that would leverage newer technologies (eg, speech
to text) and at that time had evaluated Nuance Winscribe. While it was deemed a ‘better’ then what we have now solution, the team determined
that it was still not the perfect fit and that we would commence working with Axon for an even better solution.At the time, the Nuance Winscribe solution was quoted at $50,431.95USD purchase, with an ongoing maintenance fee of $21,211.95 USD/year.
The Belleville Police Service will be the first Canadian Police agency to partner with Axon and pilot their DraftOne Generative Al Reporting Solution. This solution was just brought into Canada in June 2024. The platform allows ingestion of different sources of media (bodyworn camera,
in vehicle dashcam, and early next year – electronic notes) to assist in the production of an officer report. Case studies have suggested significant
officer and civilian time savings as a result of utilizing DraftOne, as well as higher quality and more accurate reports.The Belleville Police Service will have until December 2024 to pilot and evaluate Axon’s DraftOne at no cost to the Service. If successful leveraging
this technology will significantly reduce the time spent by our front line officers dictating their reports. It encourages better articulation on the part of the officers as the more thorough the investigative process the better the quality of the Al generated report. It also allows for our sworn staff to remain out on patrol in our community rather than returning to our headquarters to work on the more lengthy, detailed reports. Our civilian transcribers can then focus on other administrative tasks such as linking an verifying data as well as supporting our front end officers with Crown Brief preparation and other required paperwork.A detailed analysis of the pilot project and the costs/benefits will be provided to the Board at the conclusion of the project in December of this
Police Chief Mike Callaghan to the Belleville Police Service Board
year.
It’s a pilot project, so we’ve agreed to a six-month pilot with (Axon). There’s no cost to the taxpayer whatsoever, nothing comes from our budget, and we are already partners with Axon with our tasers and with our body-worn cameras
It’ll be a one stop shop for our officers, and we are the first agency in Canada to pilot this.
Acting Police Chief Chris Barry
DraftOne does not track which parts were written by AI and officer (ie. “track changes”)
So when a police report includes biased language, inaccuracies, misinterpretations, or even outright lies, the record won’t indicate whether the officer or the AI is to blame. That makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to assess how the system affects justice outcomes, because there is little non-anecdotal data from which to determine whether the technology is junk.Â
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Axon eNotes Project
Electronic Notes: Belleville Police Service commenced a partnership with Axon to review and implement an electronic notes (eNotes) project. Belleville Police Service is the first Canadian agency to partner with Axon on this innovative project, aimed at streamlining documentation processes for officers.
2023 Annual Report
The Belleville Police Service completed full rollout of the Axon Electronic Notebook pilot, a first-of-its-kind initiative in Canada. Officers can take notes on computers or smartphones, leveraging speech-to-text functionality, with seamless integration into our Axon Digital Evidence Management System (DEMS).
2024 Annual Report
