Justice broadens its AI data analysis abilities to process video, redact info

The Department of Justice will expand its artificial intelligence capabilities to support investigation operations, particularly to accelerate the data analysis behind tracking vehicles and persons of interest without the use of personal identifiable information. 

Announced today, Veritone, an AI software company, agreed to expand its offerings within the DOJ’s Executive Office of the U.S. Attorneys. Proprietary Veritone applications that will be available to DOJ officials have two main use cases: investigatory and public record redaction requests. 

Jon Gacek, Veritone’s public sector general manager, told Nextgov/FCW that Veritone’s technology will be leveraged to translate and transcribe video and audio evidence into English from different languages. Today’s announcement marks the expansion of these capabilities into DOJ’s prior contract for Veritone’s operating system, aiWARE. 

“We are honored to deepen our partnership with the Executive Office of the U.S. Attorneys, Veritone’s original sponsor with the Department of Justice,” Gacek said in separate prepared remarks. “The expanded authorization of Veritone solutions comes at a time when agencies are grappling with a growing volume of unstructured audio and video data, and our tools play a pivotal role to automate workflows and supercharge their teams with AI technology.”

Representatives from the DOJ did not respond to a request for comment. Gacek said, however, that the video analytics component Veritone offers with the updated contract is a “big component” for local and federal government partners to modernize their operations. 

“There's too much unstructured audio and video for somebody to watch or listen to effectively,” he said. “And the DOJ also includes documents…that’s also unstructured data...at their scale, it's created a massive amount of unstructured data that they don't have enough people to actually supervise and go through.”

Organizing video data is Veritone’s specialty, and Gacek said that the AI systems DOJ authorized will distill data from videos off of body cams and other surveillance systems for investigative use. Some of this data will also be cleared and handled for Freedom of Information Act Requests, which may feature redacted imagery and information. 

Veritone’s solutions for protecting redacted information, streamlining workflows and enabling data analysis “are readily available to U.S. Attorneys’ offices through the FedRAMP Marketplace,” the press release reads.