Chatbot on security in the European Parliament

Chatbots and user support

European Parliament

Use case ID: 014

Author: European Parliament

Date: 5 June 2024 

Objective:

Develop the S.A.S.H.A. chatbot, which aims at making it faster and more efficient to access information, particularly about security issues in the European Parliament. 

Actors:

  • Innovation, Intranets and Digital Solutions Unit (INNOVIT)
  • Directorate for Publishing, Innovation and Data Management
  • Directorate-General for Innovation and Technological Support (DG ITEC)
  • Directorate-General for Security (DG SAFE) 

Prerequisites:

  • No hardware or software requirements if the end-user interface is used
  • The chatbot is developed hosted externally by Sinch (Chatlayer) and hosted externally on the Sinch SAAS platform. 

Scenario:

  1. The user visits a relevant page on the European Parliament (EP) intranet.
  2. The chatbot pops up and the user asks a question about the topics in scope, or chooses to navigate to the topic their question is about.
  3. The chatbot answers the question, pointing to the intranet page where more information can be found. 

Alternate flows:

  • If the question is out of the scope of the chatbot, it will produce an answer such as “Sorry, I was not able to understand your question. Could you please rephrase your question?”.
  • If there are too many unknown questions, the chatbot will redirect the user to a phone number. 

Expected results:

  • The chatbot informs the user in a timely and accurate manner. 

Potential challenges:

  • Handling inputs in several languages and maintaining high-quality output in English
  • Handling ambiguous or poorly structured text inputs 

Data requirements:

  • Input: a question from the user
  • Database: information from safety and security services 

Integrations with other systems:

  • The chatbot is integrated into the EP intranet. 

Success metrics:

  • User satisfaction and feedback from end users regarding the accuracy and relevance of answers, using an evaluation mechanism

 

The Use cases for AI in parliaments collection is published by the IPU’s Centre for Innovation in Parliament as part of the Parliamentary Data Science Hub’s project to create guidelines for AI governance in parliaments.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence. It may be freely shared and reused with acknowledgement of the author and the IPU. 

A use case describes how a system should work. It is used to plan, develop and measure implementation. A use case is not the same as a case study, which is a descriptive text of an actual project’s implementation. Please note that this use case is provided “as is” and neither the IPU nor the author accepts any responsibility for its use.

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