Digital citizen assistant

What is the digital citizen assistant?

The "digital citizen assistant" is an AI-supported chatbot. It answers questions about citizen services, tourism and events. To do this, the chatbot uses the content of the city's website www.bocholt.de and AI technology to provide information quickly and accurately - around the clock.

This service complements the existing search function and helps to improve accessibility to municipal information.

Frequently asked questions

Where does the chatbot get its information from? How up-to-date is it?

The chatbot's information comes from the context that is available to it on our website at www.bocholt.de. Each time the chatbot receives an enquiry, it retrieves the information that is currently available - which is why it should immediately take into account any last-minute changes to the page.

Example:

What events are taking place in Bocholt at the weekend?

Here the bot will list current events from the events calendar.

Does the chatbot learn?

Although the chatbot's "core" (i.e. the large language model) is updated regularly, it does not learn directly from the questions it is asked.

It obtains its information from the city's website. If the chatbot outputs incorrect information or does not know an answer, this information may currently be missing from the City of Bocholt's online offering.

In this case, please send us an e-mail to chatbot(at)bocholt(dot)de

Is data stored during use? Where is the data processed?

The chatbot is hosted by YOUniquehorns GmbH from Ulm in Germany ("BotBucket").

Your chat history (questions/answers) and your IP address are stored by our IT service provider for a maximum of three months and then automatically deleted. Only anonymised information on the usage statistics of the entire chatbot is retained.

"BotBucket" is operated in the AWS and Azure cloud. The server locations are within the EU. Requests entered may also be processed by Google outside the EU (search). By using the chatbot on our site, you expressly consent to this processing. The chatbot does not require any information about you as the user at any point.

Therefore, please make sure that you do not enter any information about yourself or other persons, such as names, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, etc., in the chat window when using the chat.

This information can also be found in the privacy policy of the city of Bocholt.

What do the stars below the answer mean?

The quality of the answer is rated using stars. As soon as a chatbot answer is rated with only one star, it is general basic knowledge that the bot obtains from the Large Language Model.

In such cases, no source is usually displayed and it is advisable to make the answer more specific or to check it. This can be done using the magnifying glass icon.