In 2025, the Ohio Department of Public Safety (ODPS) and the Statewide Terrorism Analysis and Crime Center (STACC) partnered with VIGILITI to launch Safeguard Ohio, a first-in-the-nation Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) platform powered by VIGILITI‘s AI SaaS technology.
Safeguard Ohio strengthens early threat detection by transforming public-submitted tips into structured, prioritized, and actionable intelligence. Built to national reporting standards (NTER/NSI, BTAM), VIGILITI’s patented technology automates triage and categorization, giving analysts faster insight into credible threats while seamlessly integrating with existing case and records management systems and eliminating manual entry.
In the first months following statewide launch, Safeguard Ohio increased suspicious activity reporting by 857% year-over-year. By enabling analysts to focus on verified threats rather than administrative tasks, Ohio has become a national model for proactive prevention and efficient inter-agency coordination.
Safeguard Ohio proves that when AI amplifies human judgment, agencies can act sooner and collaborate smarter with early warning threat information intake in real time.
Background
Ohio’s Statewide Terrorism Analysis and Crime Center (STACC) was created in 2016 by merging the intelligence and analysis functions of multiple state and local partners. Given the mission of turning raw data into meaningful intelligence, STACC’s efforts require extraordinary precision and significant human effort. Analysts faced a constant influx of reports arriving through multiple channels, often in inconsistent formats and with incomplete details.
Every piece of information, from a suspicious package report to a potential behavioral threat, demanded manual review, classification, and data entry. The process was thorough but time intensive. Analysts spent countless hours standardizing information before they could even begin evaluating its credibility or relevance to ongoing investigations.
The Challenge
The data bottleneck reflected a larger challenge across public safety agencies: the man-hours required to transform community tips into actionable intelligence. The issue wasn’t a lack of data or public engagement, but instead the strain placed on analysts and the inefficiency of traditional intake tools that weren’t built for modern, multi-source reporting.
ODPS leadership recognized that the answer wasn’t to expand personnel, but to modernize the process. Ohio needed a way to amplify analyst capability without compromising accuracy or compliance. The state sought a platform that could automatically structure data, apply national threat-assessment standards, eliminate barriers to reporting, and deliver analysts the clarity they needed to act quickly—all while preserving the state’s reputation as a national model for safety, service, and protection.
The Solution: Safeguard Ohio
To meet growing operational demand for faster, more accurate intelligence processing, the Ohio Department of Public Safety (ODPS) and the Statewide Terrorism Analysis and Crime Center (STACC) partnered with VIGILITI to design and deploy Safeguard Ohio, a statewide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) platform built to national threat-reporting standards and powered by patented artificial intelligence technology.
At its core, Safeguard Ohio modernizes how Ohio collects and processes public-safety information. The system’s AI-driven chatbot guides citizens through structured reporting, asking adaptive follow-up questions that ensure every submission includes the essential details analysts need. Each report is automatically categorized, prioritized, and formatted according to NTER/NSI and BTAM protocols, producing high-fidelity data that meets national intelligence standards from the moment it is received.
The chatbot is multilingual, enabling citizens to submit reports in up to 100 languages. VIGILITI’s natural-language processing engine automatically translates and standardizes responses for analysts in English, eliminating language barriers that have historically limited participation in statewide reporting systems. This expands accessibility and improves the diversity and quality of tips received.
From a technical standpoint, Safeguard Ohio is hosted in a secure GOV Cloud environment and integrates with existing RMS/CMS systems across Ohio’s law enforcement and homeland security networks, eliminating duplicate entry and parallel workflows.
Implementation followed a structured, collaborative model:
- Needs Assessment: ODPS and STACC worked with VIGILITI advisors to map intake channels, data silos, and triage workflows.
- Configuration and Integration: The platform was customized for Ohio’s infrastructure, including RMS connectivity and multilingual testing.
- Training and Rollout: Analysts and staff received onboarding and scenario-based training on triage and system use.
- Operational Launch: Analysts began processing live data with immediate gains in speed and completeness.
Safeguard Ohio enhances—not replaces—existing workflows. By automating intake, translation, and classification, it allows analysts to focus on analysis, correlation, and inter-agency coordination.
Today, Safeguard Ohio serves as a national model for AI-augmented threat reporting.
Results and Impact
Within months of deployment, Safeguard Ohio delivered measurable improvements across STACC operations.
Operational Efficiency
Manual workloads were reduced by an estimated 75%, cutting time from submission to review from approximately two hours to minutes.
Data Quality and Accuracy
Report completeness improved by 70% due to structured intake and multilingual support.
Community Engagement
SAR submissions increased by 857%, including higher participation from underrepresented communities.
Inter-Agency Coordination
Integration across systems enabled a 2x faster coordination rate and reduced duplication across agencies.
Conclusion
The success of Safeguard Ohio demonstrates what is possible when innovation and public service converge. By combining VIGILITI’s AI technology with Ohio’s operational leadership, the state has transformed SAR reporting into a real-time intelligence system.
The results are clear: faster analysis, better coordination, and greater public engagement. Ohio now serves as a scalable model for AI-enabled public safety modernization.
“Events that threaten the safety of Ohioans can be hard to predict, but they can be prevented with help from timely, detailed tips from the public,” said Ohio Governor DeWine.
See something. Say something. Safeguard Ohio smarter.
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