With South Korea's new criminal justice system taking effect on Oct. 2 and expected to expand police investigative responsibilities and workloads, the Korean National Police Agency is extending its in-house artificial intelligence services across administrative and investigative work. The aim is to hand repetitive tasks such as document searches and drafting over to AI, easing the burden on frontline officers so they can focus on field response.
According to reporting by The Seoul Economic Daily on the 29th, the police agency will run a three-month pilot of the "Public Safety AI Assistant," a set of three tailored AI services, from late this month through December. The services cover AI-based search of public safety knowledge, drafting of press releases and internal reports, and preparation of materials requested by the National Assembly. About 500 volunteers from the agency's headquarters, metropolitan and provincial police agencies and affiliated organizations will use the services first, with plans to expand to all employees by the end of this year.
The public safety knowledge search answers questions based on internal work materials such as statistics and white papers. It has been loaded with 115 work manuals, more than 250,000 documents from the government's On-Nara system, and roughly 20 years of police white papers and statistics. When officers ask about laws, statistics or procedures such as registering a drunk-driving prevention device, the system provides answers along with the original source text.
The press release and report drafting AI analyzes work materials and generates drafts that match police formats and writing style. For investigative press releases, it also checks compliance with public information rules, including whether personal information of people involved in a case is exposed and whether disclosure of investigative techniques or criminal methods is appropriate. The National Assembly materials AI produces draft replies using existing parliamentary response records and the latest work materials.
Police are also expanding AI use in investigations. The agency is upgrading its "Investigation Support AI," which assists with searching investigation manuals, summarizing investigative documents and drafting warrant applications, as well as recommending questions for interviews and preparing case closure decisions and crime summary sheets.
With police investigative responsibilities expected to grow after the launch of the Major Crimes Investigation Agency and the Public Prosecution Agency, including responses to requests for supplementary investigations, the agency plans to reassign investigative personnel and use AI to cut repetitive work. Lee Dong-hwan, head of the public safety artificial intelligence policy division at the National Police Agency's Future Public Safety Policy Bureau, said, "We will continue to raise work efficiency through the AI transition so that no gaps remain in victim protection."
