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ICE Call Center Finds Relief with Automation and AI
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or more widely known as ICE, is using artificial intelligence and automation software to better manage the Homeland Security Investigations Tip Line. The call center is an important resource for the agency, providing agents with leads into major crimes related to terrorism, cybersecurity, finance, and human trafficking.
The agency is experimenting with new digital strategies to manage call volume, automate inquiries, and also to upgrade existing infrastructure that is growing outdated. Call center agents reported a drop in call volume over the months of the pandemic, but as the world continues to return to normal, ICE leaders anticipate those numbers will rise again. Before the pandemic began, the agency received more than 3,000 calls per week.
“We're exploring AI processes that read web tips through our online tip form,” said HSI Tip Line Unit Chief Jody Fasenmyer, in an interview with GovernmentCIO Media & Research. “That technology should also help us categorize those tips based on the tip type. That helps our analysts reduce the amount of time required to process those tips. That also allows us to identify the higher priority leads.”
Fasenmyer and other agency leaders are currently researching new ways to make the call center more efficient, which currently relies on manual processes for many critical tasks. The agency has also sought the help of the HSI Innovation Lab to create new tools to better manage the call center, such as call priority categorization, automated data reporting, and file sharing.
“Getting metrics on our performance or the outcomes of our tips, that's a very manual process and requires a lot of time.” Fasenmyer added, “With the HSI Innovation Lab, we're looking to automate that process. In processing tip information, there are a lot of extra steps our analysts go through to move information from Word documents into systems while compiling a report. We're really looking to eliminate a lot of that redundancy and extra steps.”
Edited by Maurice Nagle