Seattle has been using AI to listen to every 911 medical call since 2023. Nobody was told.

TL;DRSeattle Fire has used Corti AI on all 911 medical calls since December 2023 with no public disclosure or surveillance ordinance review.

The Seattle Fire Department has been using artificial intelligence to listen to every 911 medical call in the city since December 2023, according to a GeekWire investigation published this week. The AI, built by Copenhagen-based startup Corti, monitors calls in real time and prompts dispatchers to route certain callers away from emergency response and toward a nurse consultation line operated out of Texas. The department never disclosed the system to the public, never submitted it for review under Seattle’s surveillance ordinance, and never sought city council approval.

Seattle’s surveillance ordinance, codified as SMC 14.18, requires city departments to obtain council approval before deploying any technology that “observes, monitors, or collects data about individuals” in ways that raise civil liberties or social justice concerns. The ordinance was passed in 2017 specifically to give the public a say in how the city uses surveillance tools. A Seattle Fire Department spokesperson told GeekWire that the department does not consider Corti a surveillance technology because it does not store call audio or identify individual callers.