Japan Police to Test AI Use for Better Investigations

Tokyo, Sept. 2 (Jiji Press)--Japan's National Police Agency plans to conduct experiments in fiscal 2019 on the use of artificial intelligence to improve the efficiency of investigations, including an analysis of vehicle types. AI will also be employed to look into questionable financial transactions and discover suspicious people and objects in large-scale events, informed sources said. Some prefectural police departments have carried out similar experiments, but this will be the first trial by the NPA, according to the sources. Under the agency's plans, AI will crunch related data in order to be able to determine vehicle types even from unclear footage of surveillance cameras. The NPA hopes that if AI can identify specific vehicles from fragmented information such as on part of an auto body, it will help the investigations of hit-and-run incidents, the sources said. The NPA also aims to use AI for the analysis of information about suspicious money transactions. Last year, a total of about 400,000 pieces of such information were reported to the police under the act on the prevention of transfers of criminal proceeds. The NPA analyzes them and provides the results to prefectural police departments and prosecutors for use in probes into money-laundering and other cases. Currently, the discovery of relevant items from a vast amount of information depends on the judgment of analysts. The NPA hopes that the use of AI will facilitate the sorting out of useful information, the sources said. Another area in which the NPA plans to use AI is the detection of suspicious individuals and objects in large-scale events, including sports contests and international conferences. It is sometimes difficult for the police to scrutinize a large volume of security camera footage closely due to the limited number of officers. The NPA plans to have AI learn the situations in which a bag is left unattended or an individual is wandering back and force in the same location, in order to help discover suspicious people and objects, the sources said. An official said the NPA hopes to make use of AI not only in crime investigations but also in the whole range of police activities including crime prevention efforts. END