currently 57 languages<\/a> that the cameras are capable of translating,\u201d Sgt. John Mullins said. \u201c(Before) we would use the language line or any other services, Google Translate things like that with deputies on the road. Sometimes that leads to some frustration between having to type the questions and answers back in and wait for the response there.\u201d<\/p>\nAgency-wide, more than 800 deputies can break down language barriers with the push of a button. Bailiffs at the Pinellas County Jail have access to this, too.<\/p>\n
The Pinellas County Sheriff\u2019s Office acquired this new tool by adding an additional fee to its pre-existing contract with the company Axon.<\/p>\n
Here are the languages offered:<\/p>\n
Afrikaans, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Mandarin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Marathi, Maori, Nepali, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tamil, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh<\/p>\n
This new feature launched Nov. 15, kicking off a 90-day trial.<\/p>\n
Since launching, this is what the department learned:<\/p>\n
Seventeen languages have already been used, including Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish, French, Russian, Ukrainian and Polish.
\nSpanish has accounted for 95% of those translations.
\nSince it\u2019s still AI-generated, translations are about 90-95% accurate.
\nIt is less accurate with hybrid or mixed languages such as Spanglish, but partial translation can still be helpful.
\nThere are a couple of languages in the translation tool that aren\u2019t represented, such as Creole and Albanian. This has been reported so it can be included in future upgrades.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis gets used on everything from routine day-to-day traffic stops all the way up to physical domestics, any sort of in-progress calls. We\u2019ve used it on virtually everything we\u2019ve responded to at this point,\u201d said Mullins.<\/p>\n
Mullins explained how it works.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we first activate the function, we\u2019ll push a button on the side of the body camera. As we hold the button, it will listen to whatever language is being spoken in. The AI software will determine what language it is and then provide the response back to us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
From there, a conversation begins.<\/p>\n
Mullins noted, \u201cThe shorter phrases back and forth is the most effective.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mullins has already used it at a traffic stop with an Arabic-speaking driver.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo normally we\u2019d have to go back to the car, reach out to the dispatch center or communications and say, \u2018Hey, do we have anybody that speaks this language?\u2019 They have to then go through and search with us, and they\u2019ll pull the surrounding agencies,\u201d Mullins said. \u201cIf they don\u2019t, we call the language line. (We) have to walk back up, do everything on the cell phone with speakerphone to try and communicate with the person.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mullins said in the past, deputies would wait for another deputy who spoke the language. By doing so, this could pull that deputy away from assignment and delay communication for an hour.<\/p>\n
He explained, it\u2019s more than time. The translation tool is meant to curb confusion and improve interactions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat removes the inhumaneness of using a cell phone to be typing to talk to somebody, instead of being able to have that natural, free-flowing conversation,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Mullins is proud that their century-old agency continues to evolve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LARGO, Fla. \u2014 The Pinellas County Sheriff\u2019s Office is using new technology to strengthen communication with the community.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2967,115438,115,596,277,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,6390,835],"class_list":["post-296476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-public-safety","tag-justina-rhines","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-public-safety","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-topic-latest-public-safety-crime-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}