MONTEGO BAY, St James — The St James police have revealed that tipsters will soon be able to anonymously send them information utilising the power of artificial intelligence (AI).

“We are currently working on an AI platform using WhatsApp to see how we can get more information regarding crimes. We’re testing it in-house but we are very cautious, we want to ensure that when we roll it out it’s seamless. We want to do some public education prior to the launch because we want to ensure that the public feels comfortable knowing that their personal information or data will not be compromised,” Divisional Commander Senior Superintendent Eron Samuels told the Jamaica Observer.

“It would be totally anonymous; no name or information would be disclosed. In fact, how it works is that after it gets the information, the end user does not see who it is coming from. The police would not get the name or contact number, it would just get the raw information so that we can act on it,” he disclosed.

The initiative is being done through a partnership with the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry which has a history of working with the police force in its efforts to curb crime in St James.

“They are in partnership with a particular company that has already looked at doing AI platforms for law enforcement and they approached us with the idea which we are now working on,” Samuels revealed.

Gathering information from individuals has been challenging over the years because of Jamaica’s historic “informer fi dead” culture. Samuels is hopeful the upcoming initiative will help reduce the fear of people telling the police what they know.

“I think it will be a game changer because this will also be available to visitors. It will allow for persons who are careful — in terms of giving information to the police — to find a medium where anywhere they are, they can give information to the police,” he said.

“Even if they don’t want to do it [personally], they can give the information to somebody overseas and they can in turn give us the information,” the senior cop suggested as an alternative.

Samuels stressed the importance of ensuring that the system meets the requirements of Jamaica’s data protection regulations before it is rolled out.

“We have to fix our parts of it in terms of ensuring that we have a dedicated person or persons who will be monitoring that information and feeding it to the teams on the ground,” he explained.

“We have a little way to go in terms of ensuring that when we roll out, it’s seamless. But we have already started testing, that’s how far we,’” Samuels continued.

He said measures will be put in place to ensure the system is not manipulated.

“We don’t want persons to abuse the system or give us fake information. We will vet the information when we get it and we are just hoping that persons will ensure that they don’t give us that false information,” Samuels said.

The tip line will also let the senior cop and his team know what users think about how they are doing their job.

“What I am also really looking for is to improve the customer service that we hope to get from this app because the public perception has to change. We want to lead, in St James, in terms of providing quality customer service for the members of the public…across the length and breadth of St James,” Samuels told the Observer.

This, he said, fits in well with another initiative that the police were already exploring when they were approached with the idea for the tip line.

“We had already tried to put something in place…where persons would rate police officers by just scanning the QR codes,” he explained.

“We had created that form, and were just about ready at rolling it out when the opportunity to partner with the AI [based system] came along,” Samuels said.

“We basically rolled that form over into AI. So instead of you scrolling and typing the information in the form, you will be able to grade the customer service of any police officer in St James,” he stated.