Private firm demonstrates software it says can triage DCS data and speed missing‑child investigations

Expert Works, a private firm led by a retired officer whose presentation identified the company’s product as “Intel Expert,” demonstrated to the Arizona House Government Committee on Jan. 27 a software suite the company says can rapidly analyze large volumes of audio, video and structured data to surface investigative leads in missing‑child and child‑exploitation cases.

The presenter told the committee that Arizona faces a high volume of calls and limited investigative capacity. Citing a state audit, he said the child‑abuse hotline received 159,931 calls in fiscal 2024 — about 438 per day — and that roughly 30% of callers disconnected before reaching an operator. He and his colleagues said Arizona had 448 Department of Child Safety investigators at the time of the audit and a backlog they described as 8,189 open cases.

In a live explanation and screen demonstration, the company’s technical lead said the system converts uploads of audio or video files into both original‑language and English transcripts, identifies locations, financial transactions, vehicle references and likely co‑conspirator nodes, and presents ‘‘link charts’’ that map relationships among people and events. The presenter said those outputs point investigators to the small subset of files that merit human review rather than requiring staff to listen to hundreds of hours of recordings.

‘‘What this does is take those same hundred and 160 hours and turn it into 5 minutes of human work,’’ the presenter told the committee.

Company representatives said the product is not an evidence replacement: source files remain the evidentiary record and the platform’s outputs are intended to be investigative aides for human review. They pointed to use cases in Iowa and other jurisdictions where the tool assisted task forces to identify networks and locate suspects.

Committee members asked whether the system could be retooled specifically for DCS needs (for example, flagging trafficking keywords or processing legacy hot‑line calls). Company witnesses said retooling would be a matter of days, that legacy files could be processed if the source files exist, and that the system could flag indicators for investigators to review. They also said they had not yet deployed the product specifically for a child‑exploitation task force in Arizona but that the software had been used by a sheriff’s office in Iowa for child‑exploitation work.

Members asked about procurement, cost and competition. Company representatives said they would provide return‑on‑investment metrics and emphasized the product would be subject to any required state competitive procurement process; the chair repeatedly said that any legislative or procurement steps would not be vendor‑specific and that a formal RFI/RFP would be used if adopted.

The committee did not take formal action on a procurement or pilot during the meeting, but members discussed options including a pilot program, legislative direction for DCS, and budget negotiations to fund a trial. The chair said the committee would coordinate with DCS and other state agencies to determine the best next steps.

The presentation and the committee’s questions made clear that members saw potential operational value in triage tools for agency backlogs but also wanted cost estimates, procurement review and assurances about human oversight and evidentiary procedures.

The committee moved on to its agenda of bills after the presentation.