Need to contact the police? This page is for police forces choosing live chat software, and the chat button on this page is IMsupporting's own sales chat, which can't take reports.
In an emergency, call 999; if you can't speak on a mobile, stay on the line and press 55 when asked. Deaf or speech-impaired: use 999 BSL, call 18000 with Relay UK, or text 999 if you've registered with emergencySMS. For non-emergencies, call 101 (18001 101 with Relay UK) or find your local force on police.uk.
Police 101 and non-emergency contact
Add or upgrade live chat for your force contact centre, control room or digital desk. AI answers routine 101 questions using your own guidance, journeys involving risk go straight to trained handlers, and chat opens automatically when your team is online.
Already in use with police forces and councils across the UK.
Police digital contact
Police live chat, also called police webchat, is a text conversation on a force's website between a member of the public and the force. It can be answered by a trained contact handler, by an AI assistant working from the force's own guidance, or by both. It gives people a non-emergency alternative to calling 101, and one handler can manage several chats at once.
The pressure on 101 is the reason it matters. The National Police Chiefs' Council puts 101 at around 20 million calls a year: one in five isn't a police matter, and two in five are people chasing updates. Every enquiry a chat resolves, or routes correctly first time, frees a handler for contacts that need judgement.
Sources: NPCC, Transforming public contact in policing (27 Oct 2025); NPCC, AI in policing (26 Jun 2025); College of Policing, Improving force control room services (24 Jul 2024).
The January 2026 police reform white paper commits policing and the Home Office to "digital contact channels which supplement existing telephony channels, creating greater choice for the public", and notes that a handful of forces have already introduced AI chatbots to triage non-urgent online queries.
PoliceAI, the national centre for AI in policing, launched in June 2026 with £75m over three years; its first use cases include triaging non-emergency calls to the right responder. In August 2026 an AI switchboard developed by the Home Office, the NPCC and Vodafone went live in South Yorkshire, working out why someone is calling 101 and redirecting non-police calls before they queue.
HMICFRS's State of Policing 2025-26 found some forces using AI at the first point of contact to support risk assessment. IMsupporting takes a more cautious line: its AI answers questions but doesn't assess risk, so your journeys decide what goes to people. As the College of Policing puts it, risk management must be equally effective whichever route a contact comes through.
Research by the ESRC-funded INTERACT project (2024) found a consistent preference for a human operator over an AI chatbot in online crime-reporting scenarios, and advised caution about adopting AI purely to cut costs. Focus groups wanted a choice of channel, clear guidance and confirmation that their report had been received.
That is why IMsupporting's police live chat software is built for hybrid contact: AI for routine questions, trained people for anything that matters, and a clear route from one to the other.
Designed around policing risk
Police digital contact needs more than a public-facing chatbot. These journeys are worth building first, each one a chat flow your own team controls.
Answer the questions that fill 101 queues: front counter opening times, how to report online, what happens after a report and where to get help. AI answers using your published guidance, so handlers spend their time on contacts that need a person.
One in five 101 calls isn't a police matter. Chat flows can point people to the right place with a button rather than a queue: the council for noise and fly-tipping, NHS 111 for health advice. Mental health and welfare concerns should still reach a handler who applies your Right Care, Right Person threshold.
Collect what happened, where, when and who was involved before a handler joins, with structured questions that support your THRIVE assessment. The handler starts with the facts, not a blank screen.
Two in five 101 calls are people chasing updates. Ask for the reference number up front and route the chat to the right team, or check status automatically where your own systems offer an API, after the identity checks your force requires.
Start every journey with an immediate-danger question and 999 guidance that covers the Silent Solution, emergencySMS, 999 BSL and Relay UK; 999 and 101 become tap-to-call links. Send anything involving risk or vulnerability straight to a person. The AI doesn't assess risk, and AI intent and sentiment steps (beta) are routing aids, not safety controls.
Typing can be safer than talking for someone experiencing domestic abuse, or anyone who can't speak freely. Route these journeys straight to trained handlers with no AI agent in the conversation. The widget has no quick-exit button, so host them on pages with your own quick exit and online-safety advice, and don't offer an emailed transcript on them.
Firearms licensing, found property, seized vehicles, events and road closures: the AI answers using documents your force uploads, so answers start from your guidance. Test it before going live.
When a handler joins, the full AI conversation, the person's answers and any context from your website are already on screen, so nobody has to repeat themselves.
Link witness appeals, posters and community messages straight into a chat journey with your direct chat link, or a QR code made from it. Route neighbourhood questions to the right team with the details captured, supporting the 72-hour response in the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee.
Answer questions about officer, PCSO, special constable and police staff roles from your recruitment guides, and let candidates book a Microsoft Teams call with the recruitment team without leaving the chat.
Chat reaches people the phone line misses: Deaf and speech-impaired people, alongside Relay UK and BSL services; people outside the UK; and people who would simply rather type.
See demand by hour and day, the journeys people choose, where they drop out and how satisfied they are, so you can staff the channel and show what it is achieving.
All Human / Hybrid / Full AI
Some police contacts are simple: opening hours, how to report online, what happens next. Others involve risk, vulnerability or distress. IMsupporting makes AI a controlled front door, not a replacement for trained people, and your force decides how much AI to use.
Switch AI off for the whole account (the Human Only setting): the AI agent, reply suggestions, chat summaries and Deep Learning all stay off, and every chat goes to a person. Ideal for sensitive services, or until your DPIA and AI governance are signed off.
AI answers routine questions using your knowledge and collects details, then hands over with the whole conversation on screen. Handlers can take over any AI chat at any moment, and the AI hands over whenever someone asks for a person while handlers are online.
When nobody is online, the AI agent can keep answering routine questions and your flow can take a message for the next shift. Nobody is watching at these times and the AI doesn't assess risk, so keep risk journeys off this route, say when messages will be read and show 999 guidance.
Example: a non-emergency report
Chose "Yes"? The flow shows your 999 guidance straight away, including the Silent Solution and emergencySMS, and 999 becomes a tap-to-call link.
A handler joins with the conversation and the answers on screen.
Upload public guidance, FAQs and policies as PDF, Word, Excel, CSV or text files, up to 5MB each. Administrators can test the knowledge base and see which documents an answer came from. New documents are used by the live AI agent once they're indexed, so try them in a pilot first.
Like any AI, it can make mistakes, so keep journeys that involve risk with your people. Handlers also get AI reply suggestions drawn from the same knowledge, which they can use, edit or ignore.
| What matters | AI chatbot on its own | Human-only webchat | IMsupporting hybrid AI live chat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Routine questions out of hours | Answered | Closed, or forms only | Answered by the AI agent, and your flow can take a message for the next shift |
| Risk and vulnerability | Relies on the bot spotting it | A trained handler | Emergency question first and risk journeys go straight to people. The AI doesn't assess risk; it hands over when asked, and handlers can take over any AI chat |
| Busy periods | Scales | Queues grow, or chat is switched off | Queue Gate offers alternatives when the queue is long, and AI keeps answering routine questions |
| Context when a person takes over | Varies | Not applicable | Full conversation and flow answers, with an AI summary one click away |
| Opening hours | Always on | Set hours or a manual switch | Automatic, from who is online, plus office hours and closed days |
| Who makes decisions | Mostly the bot | People | The AI answers routine questions; people handle anything you route to them and can take over any AI chat |
Want the wider picture? Read how hybrid AI live chat works across Full AI, Hybrid and All Human modes.
No-code ChatFlow Builder
Every journey is a flow your team designs in the ChatFlow Builder: drag and drop, with version history, a live preview and no developers. More than 30 step types cover danger checks, routing, structured questions, handover and feedback.
chat.closed webhook can send the details to your systems.Queue Gate branches when the queue reaches a level you set, so you can offer the AI agent, an online form or a call-back booking instead of a long wait. Time of Day and Holiday / Date Override steps handle nights, weekends and bank holidays, and waiting visitors see their place in the queue.
Send people to departments with Department Select, start the right journey for the page they're on with Page Match, and classify free text with AI Intent Branch (beta), which falls back to the route you choose when it isn't sure.
Predictable availability
HMICFRS inspections have found webchat switched off at times of high demand, so the channel isn't always there for the public. Automatic mode doesn't keep chat open at peak, but it makes availability predictable: chat opens as soon as someone who can answer is Online, falls back cleanly when nobody is, and reopens without anyone having to remember. While handlers are pulled onto 999 calls, the AI agent or Queue Gate can keep offering routine help, online reporting links and the offline form.
Right now
Team status
Office hours 08:00-22:00 daily. Closed days: 25 December, 1 January.
Practical for force contact centres
Chat should make handlers faster, not busier. Everything a handler or supervisor needs is in one browser-based console, from any contact centre site or from home.
Handle several chats at once in tabs, up to a limit you set. Sound, on-screen and desktop alerts flag new chats as they arrive.
Every chat keeps a transcript, and an AI summary is one click away when AI is on. Private notes stay internal: they never appear in the visitor's copy or in webhooks.
Route chats to departments from the flow or the page they start on, and move a chat to another department in one click.
Approved wording on a keystroke, and a contact category you can make compulsory before a chat closes, so reporting matches how you classify demand.
Tag repeat or nuisance visitors, and ban by IP address or device, with an expiry. Banned visitors see a generic message, so keep 999 and 101 guidance on your page.
A supervisor grid gives administrators live chats at a glance, and a wallboard shows waiting chats, people online, response times and abandoned chats, refreshing every five seconds.
Answers from the chat flow
Context from your website
Handler tools
The full AI conversation sits above these details in the same chat.
Webhooks, APIs and Microsoft 365
Chat shouldn't be an island. IMsupporting sends signed events to your systems as things happen, and chat flows can call your APIs mid-conversation.
| Event | Sent when | Typical police use |
|---|---|---|
chat.started |
A member of the public starts a chat, with a person or the AI agent | Live dashboards, or an alert in a Microsoft Teams channel through Power Automate |
chat.closed |
A chat ends: visitor details, pre-chat answers, chat details, the AI summary when summaries are on, and the transcript (newest 500 messages) if you opt in | Create or update a record in your CRM, case management or data warehouse |
offline_message.created |
Someone leaves a message while chat is closed | Create a task for the next shift |
feedback.submitted |
A rating or comment is left | Feed satisfaction reporting, for example in Power BI |
{
"id": "msg_2f6c1d0e9a8b7c6d5e4f3a2b",
"type": "chat.closed",
"timestamp": "2026-10-06T21:32:10Z",
"api_version": "2026-10-06",
"data": {
"chat": {
"department": "Digital desk",
"category": "Lost property",
"abandoned": false
},
"prechat_fields": [
{ "label": "Reference number", "value": "Not provided" }
],
"ai_summary": {
"summary": "Asked how to report a lost wallet; sent the online form.",
"sentiment": "Neutral"
},
"transcript_included": false
}
}chat.closed event, shortened. Values are illustrative.API Form and API Conditional steps post captured details to your endpoints, or branch on a lookup such as a reference number check. A Webhook step can notify your systems from any point in a flow, and Email Form sends structured details to a team mailbox. Use HTTPS for your own endpoints.
Custom AI tools let the AI agent call your approved HTTPS APIs, server-side, for answers that need live data. See AI tool integrations.
The Microsoft 365 Calendar step books slots and Microsoft Teams meetings from inside a chat, for call-backs or video appointments. Your Microsoft 365 administrator registers an app with Calendars.ReadWrite and User.Read.All permissions; we recommend limiting it to the booking mailbox. See Teams meeting booking.
There are no built-in RMS or command and control (CAD) connectors. Events and API calls go to endpoints your force controls, such as Power Automate, Azure Logic Apps or your integration hub, which then update your systems under your own rules.
The AI Integration Helper in your dashboard answers questions about connecting IMsupporting to tools such as Microsoft Teams, Zapier, Make and n8n, and our team offers free integration assistance. Check any third-party tool against your DPIA.
Send chat transcripts to your team mailbox, with copies for each department, and offer the member of the public a copy of their own conversation, which never includes private notes. Turn the copy off on sensitive journeys.
Assurance
Here's the summary for procurement and information assurance teams; our assurance pack covers the detail.
chat.closed webhook.The National Police Chiefs' Council's Covenant for Using AI in Policing asks for AI that is lawful, transparent, explainable, responsible, accountable and robust, with a human as the ultimate decision-maker wherever AI affects the public. The responsibility stays with your force; these are the controls IMsupporting gives you.
| Principle | How IMsupporting supports it |
|---|---|
| Lawful | A data processing agreement, help with your DPIA, chat data stored in UK data centres, UK-only AI processing on Enterprise, and Human Only mode where AI isn't approved. |
| Transparent | Tell people they're talking to AI with the assistant's name, picture and first message, and record the use in your force's AI transparency records. |
| Explainable | Answers are grounded in the documents your force uploads; you can test the knowledge base and see its sources before go-live, and every AI reply stays in the chat transcript. |
| Responsible | Sensitive journeys can go straight to trained people, with no AI agent in the conversation, and AI suggestions, summaries and Deep Learning can be switched off. |
| Accountable | Your force names the accountable owner. During staffed hours handlers can take over any AI chat, and account activity is logged. |
| Robust | You choose and update the documents the AI uses and the purposes it serves, backed by prompt-injection defences, confidence thresholds you set and rate limits on the public chat. |
| Stopping the AI | An administrator can switch AI off for the whole account at any time. |
SOH and force websites
Around 40 forces in England and Wales run their public website on Single Online Home (SOH), the national platform from the NPCC's Digital Public Contact programme, which has now handled more than 10 million non-emergency contacts. SOH's chat services use a national product or locally provided ones, so you can choose the live chat that fits how your contact centre works.
SOH is managed nationally, so your digital team adds the script through the SOH change process, which applies national joining, Content Security Policy and cookie rules; we'll work through them with your team. If your site uses a Content Security Policy, it needs to allow *.imsupporting.com, and our installation guide lists the domains to allow.
Inclusive by design
Your chat widget is part of your website, so it falls under the public sector accessibility regulations, which expect WCAG 2.2 AA. GOV.UK guidance exempts third-party content only when you didn't pay for it or develop it, so a chat widget you buy is in scope.
Inside the chat window, new messages are announced to screen readers, the message box and send button are labelled, controls meet the WCAG 2.2 minimum target size, reduced-motion settings are respected and the chat goes full screen on phones. For the most accessible start, open chat from your own labelled link or button, and include the chat in your accessibility testing.
Set bubble, button and text colours, font sizes, logo and avatars to match your accessible palette, and decide where the chat button sits.
Language Router sends visitors to journeys your team writes in Welsh, and a Cymraeg department can open automatically when a Welsh-speaking handler is online. Offer a Cymraeg / English choice as the first button too. Some built-in widget labels and status messages are currently in English, and the AI agent writes its own replies, so keep Welsh journeys with Welsh-speaking handlers. The Welsh Language Commissioner expects chatbots to give a consistent, high-quality bilingual experience and warns against automated translation without human review.
The pre-chat page and every message are yours to write, so you can use plain English, Easy Read style wording and clear "not for emergencies" guidance.
Evidence, not anecdotes
In 2023 HMICFRS found that no force could provide evidence that callers who abandoned 101 had moved to online channels. Live chat reporting, plus a one-question "Would you otherwise have called 101?" prompt, helps you build that evidence.
Pilot-friendly
Start small: one contact type or team, run alongside the phones, with success measures agreed up front.
Agree the journeys, opening hours and success measures, and complete your DPIA with our support.
Your team builds flows, uploads approved guidance and sets up departments and availability, with our help on the first flows.
Go live on one page or service, such as found property or general enquiries, in All Human or Hybrid mode.
Use the reports and public feedback to decide what comes next: more journeys, more teams, AI cover out of hours.
Procurements started on or after 24 February 2025 run under the Procurement Act 2023 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; call-offs from older frameworks, such as G-Cloud 14, still follow the previous regulations. You can buy through BlueLight Commercial's procurement portal or through our partner framework vendors; contact us for details. We'll support your route and provide the assurance pack: Cyber Essentials certificate, data processing agreement, sub-processor list and security questionnaire responses.
Run IMsupporting alongside your current chat on one page or team first, rebuild your journeys and canned replies, then switch over when you're ready. It runs in the browser, so there's nothing to install on handler PCs.
A pilot usually runs on the Business plan (£1,499 a month plus VAT, up to 20 handlers), and force-wide deployments on Enterprise, with bespoke pricing, dedicated UK hosting, UK-only AI processing, retention set to your rules and an SLA. If your information assurance team needs UK-only AI processing or set retention from day one, and we can upgrade your pilot to Enterprise terms while you test, or run the pilot in Human Only mode. Every paid plan starts with a 30-day free trial. See all plans.
Police live chat FAQ
No. This page is for police forces choosing live chat software, and the chat on this page is IMsupporting's own sales chat, which can't take reports. In an emergency, call 999. For non-emergencies, call 101 or use your local force's website, which you can find on police.uk.
No. Live chat is for non-emergency contact. Start every journey with a danger question and 999 guidance that includes the Silent Solution (press 55 on a mobile if you can't speak) and emergencySMS, and any 999 or 101 in a chat message becomes a tap-to-call link. Journeys involving risk can go straight to a trained handler, but emergencies must always go to 999.
Your force chooses: All Human with AI switched off, Hybrid with AI answering routine questions and handlers taking everything else, or Full AI cover for the hours you're closed. Whichever you choose, tell the public clearly when they're talking to an AI assistant.
No. The AI agent doesn't assess risk or recognise distress by itself. It hands over when someone asks for a person, or after the same message three times or 15 AI replies, and only when handlers are online. So catch risk before the AI: ask about danger first, send journeys involving risk or vulnerability straight to people, keep the AI to information journeys, and keep an eye on live AI chats.
Partly. The AI agent can be kept out of any journey, so domestic abuse or hate crime can go straight to a trained handler. AI reply suggestions, chat summaries and Deep Learning are account-wide settings, so switch them off, or run the whole account in Human Only mode, if no text from sensitive journeys should reach the AI provider.
Your chat flow decides first: a choice such as 'report something' can go straight to a handler. The AI agent hands over when someone asks for a person and handlers are online, and is made to hand over if someone repeats the same message three times or the AI has replied 15 times. AI intent and sentiment steps (beta) can route people too, taking a fallback you choose when they aren't confident, and handlers can take over any AI chat at any time.
Yes. The handler sees the whole AI conversation in the same chat, the answers the person gave in the flow and any context passed from your website, and can produce an AI summary in one click when AI is switched on. The member of the public doesn't have to repeat themselves.
Yes. In Automatic mode, chat, and each department, opens while at least one person who covers it is Online in Team status and closes about a minute after the last one leaves. Busy, AFK, On break and Getting ready don't count. Office hours, closed days such as bank holidays and a log of every change are built in.
You choose what the public sees: an offline message with links to online reporting and 101, an offline form that takes a message and says when it will be read, or the AI agent answering routine questions. Nobody is watching at those times and the AI doesn't assess risk, so keep 999 guidance in view. Outside office hours, chat stays closed whoever is signed in.
Yes, through your own integration layer. Signed webhooks send chat started, chat closed (with the transcript if you opt in), offline message and feedback events to your HTTPS endpoints, and chat flow steps can post captured details to your APIs. There are no built-in RMS or command and control connectors: your team, or ours, links the events to your systems.
Chat data is stored in UK data centres. On our standard plans, when AI features are switched on, chat text is processed by our AI provider, OpenAI, outside the UK; OpenAI doesn't use API data to train its models. On Enterprise, AI processing can run in the UK instead (see the next question). Emails are sent through Amazon SES in Ireland. In Human Only mode the AI agent, suggestions, summaries and Deep Learning are off, and the optional AI analysis buttons in Reports only send data if an administrator uses them. We'll give you the full sub-processor list for your DPIA.
Yes, on Enterprise. We can run the AI in the UK, for example on Microsoft Azure OpenAI in the UK South region, so chat text stays in the UK, isn't used to train models and isn't stored by the AI provider. For the most sensitive work, an enhanced Enterprise contract can run the AI models on our own dedicated clusters in UK South, so no third-party AI provider handles chat text at all. Both options are priced by our sales team, and a pilot can be upgraded to them while you test: .
On Enterprise, retention is fully configurable: we set how long chats, transcripts, visitor details and audit records are kept to match your force's records management rules. On other plans, retention and deletion periods are agreed with you in the data processing agreement. You can also send each transcript to your records system with the chat.closed webhook, which can include the full conversation.
Yes. Upload your public guidance, FAQs and policies as PDF, Word, Excel, CSV or text files, and the AI answers using them and the business context you write. Where they don't cover a question it can draw on general knowledge, so test it before go-live: administrators can test the knowledge base and see which documents an answer came from. Keep journeys involving risk with people.
It can be added to any website that allows a script or a link, and Single Online Home lets forces use locally provided chat products. Your digital team adds it through the SOH change process, which applies national joining, Content Security Policy and cookie rules, and we'll work through them with you.
No. Visitors can't attach files or photos in the chat, so point people to your online reporting forms when you need images or documents.
As many as you allow. You set one limit for the whole account, and handlers work their chats in separate tabs, with alerts when new ones arrive. Start low while handlers get used to the channel, then raise it as you learn your demand.
Yes. Create departments such as the digital desk, firearms licensing or recruitment, route chats to them from the flow or the page they start on, and open or close each one separately. Departments organise and label chats rather than hide them: every handler can see every chat, and there's one knowledge base per account.
Both can be set up for Enterprise and bespoke deployments. We can add single sign-on with Microsoft Entra ID or another SAML identity provider, and restrict sign-in to your force's own network, agreed as part of your contract. As standard, everyone signs in with a username, a password and an authenticator-app code, which administrators can require for every operator account.
The chat window announces new messages to screen readers and labels its message box and send button, and you set its colours and wording. For the most accessible start, open chat from your own labelled link or button, and include it in your accessibility testing. Language Router sends people to journeys your team writes in Welsh or other languages; some built-in widget labels and status messages are currently in English, and there's no automatic translation.
Handlers can tag nuisance visitors, and administrators can ban by IP address or device, with an optional expiry. Banned visitors see a generic message, so keep 999 and 101 guidance on your own page. Flood protection limits how quickly one source can start chats or send messages, and offline messages are capped per visitor each day.
Start with one service or team alongside your phones. A pilot usually runs on the Business plan (£1,499 a month plus VAT, up to 20 handlers), and force-wide deployments on Enterprise, with bespoke pricing, dedicated UK hosting, UK-only AI processing, retention set to your rules and an SLA. If your information assurance team needs UK-only AI processing or set retention from day one, and we can upgrade your pilot to Enterprise terms while you test, or run the pilot in Human Only mode. Every paid plan starts with a 30-day free trial. and we'll help you scope it.
For UK police and public safety teams
Book a short demo and we'll show how hybrid AI live chat can answer routine questions, protect escalation routes and support your handlers. Or start a free trial and build your first police chat flow today.
Already in use with police forces and councils across the UK.
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