Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what is the scope of the Citizen Assist AI crime reporting tool currently under trial by Cambridgeshire Constabulary.

The Home Office-funded, policing-led Citizen Assist AI crime reporting tool trialled by Cambridgeshire Constabulary enables the public to report certain non-emergency crimes through a conversational AI interface rather than traditional online forms.

The current pilot is limited to assault, threats, criminal damage and theft. The tool allows users to describe an incident in their own words, asks relevant follow-up questions, and generates a structured report users can review before submission into existing police systems.

Existing reporting routes, including online forms and the 101 non-emergency service, remain available. The technology is designed to support, not replace, police decision-making, and the pilot is being conducted with appropriate governance and oversight through the Police AI programme.

The pilot’s early results are encouraging. Since launching on 24 September 2026, Citizen Assist has supported more than 500 public conversations and generated over 230 completed crime reports, with a submission success rate above 99%. The service has also accounted for more than 13% of eligible online crime reports in Cambridgeshire during the pilot period, demonstrating public willingness to use conversational AI as an alternative to traditional reporting methods.