Public safety leaders are keenly interested in understanding the efficacy of machine translation software particularly in calls where life and safety are at risk. The Emergency Communications Center does use a language interpretation service for voice calls but does not currently have a method for translating texts sent in languages other than English.Īt the TechFest event, the roundtable discussion among attendees confirmed that many PSAPs do not translate texts, or if they are currently engaging in responding to texts in languages other than English, dispatchers rely on machine translation tools. In Arlington County, an estimated 140 languages are spoken over only 26 square miles. Dave Mulholland, administrator of the Arlington County, Virginia, Emergency Communications Center, estimates that less than 15% of those texts were legitimate public safety concerns. Over a little more than three years, the center had received around 400 texts. The Emergency Communications Center in Arlington County, Virginia, began accepting texts to 911 in February 2016 but has seen much slower uptake than anticipated. Many jurisdictions have not implemented any tools to translate text messages. By some estimates, as many as 2 million texts per year require language assistance, but there is currently no standard model for translating texts to 911. In many locations, public safety officials have found that soon after launching text-to-911 services, 911 call centers began receiving texts in non-English languages. However, as discussed among attendees at the TechFest, no representatives from the PSAPs present were using existing agreements with language service providers to translate text communications. Many PSAPs nationwide have contracts with language service providers to offer interpretation and translation services for emergency phone calls made by people with LEP. We anticipate the result of this joint project will be a national standard for implementing text-to-911 to LEP populations, as well as operational, business and training protocols that will ensure consistent national implementation.” Current State of Translation Services for Emergency Calls Currently, almost 28 million people across the United States are identified as LEP and need to be accommodated as more PSAPs implement the technology in their respective communities. “Since then, not only has the number of PSAPs using the platform increased to 30%, but federal, state and local laws have required call centers to ensure that the platform is available to the limited English proficient (LEP) population. “When DHS S&T and IJIS began the project in February 2016, less than 3% of the nation’s 6,000 PSAPs, also known as 911 call centers, had implemented text-to-911,” said Denis Gusty, DHS S&T program manager. TechFest was part of a broader effort by DHS S&T to work with the project team to develop, pilot and test a solution for nationally relevant translation capability for PSAPs to obtain accurate text-to-911 information from LEP users. Public safety leaders, technologists and government representatives attended TechFest to discuss how text-to-911 is being used across the country and the need for wider implementation, public education about the services and more technology tools to support translation services for text-to-911. Toward this end, the IJIS Institute, the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate, and Google hosted a text-to-911 TechFest event at the Google campus in Kirkland, Washington. “But just as many emergency call centers have voice translation services for calls, we also need to be able to offer translation for texts sent to 911 to best serve our communities.” “Texts sent to 911 are still a very low proportion of overall emergency requests,” said Michael Alagna, director of technology at the IJIS Institute, a nonprofit alliance working to promote and enable technology in the public sector. There are compelling use cases for text-to-911, such as situations of domestic abuse, home invasion, school shootings or other incidents in which callers fear being discovered if they speak. However, the adoption of text-to-911 services is expected to grow through a local patchwork approach. In fact, the widely used message, “Call if you can, text if you can’t,” conveys the preference for voice calls over texts. There is no national program at the helm of the implementation of text-to-911 services. In 2018, according to voluntary reporting to the Federal Communications Commission, it was estimated that 23% of PSAPs in the United States accepted text messages sent to 911.
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