‘Helps solve cases’: AI technology developed in Mass. could be a game-changer for police

The odds of getting criminals off the street are improving thanks to artificial intelligence.

Multitude Insights, a Somerville start-up with roots at MIT, created a sophisticated tool.

Their app changes how police bulletins are created and how they’re shared.

Detectives Boston 25 spoke with say the app is a game-changer.

Watertown detectives were the first in the country to use the AI-powered app called BLTN.

“The search tool is great because you can just type in keywords like red, sedan, and Honda,” explained Detective Joe Kelland.

“The AI will parse through all the data in each of the bulletins and give you bulletins that are connected to the item,” explained Detective Catherine Dello Russo.

She added that the app “is making law enforcement much more aware of things that are going on, not just in their town, but the surrounding cities and towns, and keeping everybody aware of finding out what’s going on at a faster rate.”

That’s because old-fashioned police bulletins are becoming a thing of the past.

Before BLTN, Dello Russo would manually generate these documents for the entire department.

“I’d have to save this as a PDF and then send it via email.”

Matthew White is the founder and CEO of Multiple Insights, which created BLTN. “Multiple Insights is a law enforcement data sharing company. If you want to use shorthand, we sometimes refer to it as Twitter for cops.”

First, it’s easier for detectives to create a BLTN, which means the overall database is continually expanding.

“Now with BLTN, it’s easy. You just log on. It makes it very foolproof. You put everything with little inputs, and then you press finish, and it creates it and posts it out to everybody,” explained Kelland.

Secondly, the AI technology can really help an investigating officer because the app is always looking for similar trends in crimes.

“It helps with solving cases a lot quicker or at least connecting the dots more quickly,” said Dello Russo. “It’s definitely super helpful in terms of parsing data that we might not have the time to look through ourselves.”

Watertown police were the first department to test BLTN, and now Boston and Brookline are also giving it a try.

About 50 agencies around the country are now using it and getting some impressive results.

“We detected a new sort of domestic terror incident that had gone unnoticed before, and we were able to report that to the FBI,” said White.

Even with promising results, White believes safeguards need to be in place.

“Technology is coming, and leveraging it the right way is the right response. Not - not leveraging it. So, what we do is we make sure that there’s always a human in the loop in decision-making.”

While BLTN relies on AI technology to link data on criminal cases, it does not use any facial recognition. That’s a business decision based on inconsistent regulation and privacy concerns.

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