NICE Systems announces new audio-analytics capabilities for public safety
NICE Systems this week announced NICE Inform Audio Analytics, which lets public-safety entities quickly access key audio clips to identify relevant trends that can bolster investigation efforts, compliance monitoring and quality-assurance (QA) processes.
A module that is included in version 7 of the NICE Inform platform, Audio Analytics utilizes speech-to-text technology to index recorded words from 911 calls, suspect interviews or audio from body-worn cameras, which lets public safety use the information in a variety of ways.
“The proliferation of big data in policing is a major trend and significant challenge,” Chris Wooten, executive vice president for NICE Security Group, said in a prepared statement. “With more and more digital media to analyze, now including video and audio from body-worn cameras, public safety and security operations will increasingly turn to analytics to gain valuable situational awareness and identify critical evidence.
“With the addition of Inform Audio Analytics, NICE’s impressive portfolio of audio and video analytics solutions are set to propel policing into the 21st century by helping organizations leverage digital data to its fullest potential, while enhancing efficiency and operational intelligence.”
NICE Systems previously offered a form of audio analytics using phonetics-based indexing on a limited basis to public-safety customers, but that system was deemed to be lacking, according to Diamond Chaflawee, NICE Systems’ director of marketing and business development. By leveraging speech-to-text indexing—complete with a confidence-level indicator for each word—that NICE uses in enterprise solutions and tailoring it to public safety, the new audio-analytics should be much more effective for the first-responder community, he said.
“This is a technology that we are making available to public safety, and it is specifically designed for public-safety use to assist in the investigation, compliance and QA [quality assurance] processes,” Chaflawee said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications.
“We did [phonetics-based indexing] with limited customers and found that it didn’t meet their needs at a satisfactory level. That’s why we developed this new technology, and the feedback we’ve received from a couple of sites that have installed it has been very positive.”
There are myriad potential uses for the audio-analytics solution, Chaflawee said. Investigation teams can sort through disparate forms of audio more quickly to identify relevant evidence or trends, or public-safety answering point (PSAP) directors can use the information to ensure that call-takers are following proper protocols when answering emergency calls.