It could be the end of 999 calls.

Scotland Yard is developing new technology that would allow victims of crime to use voice-activated personal assistants, such as Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant, to contact the police.

Under plans being drawn up by Britain's largest force, people would simply have to shout for help - and any compatible in-range technology would notify the police.

A report seen by The Sunday Times reveals that Scotland Yard think voice assistants - currently used by around 3m Brits - will "change the face of police contact".

It states that the plans being drawn up by the Metropolitan Police Force would allow "an incoming demand from a home automation bot, rather than from a human".

"The contact may be triggered by the human issuing a command to their bot, or it may be automatically generated by the bot through AI [artificial intelligence," the report states.

"Work is already under way to design the technology capabilities of the future contact centre and to consider potential developments in this area."

The plans could be rolled out within the next 18 months. Senior police sources have speculated that the development could signal the end of 999 calls, which became the world's first emergency telephone response service in 1936.