Hry police to launch facial recognition app

The Haryana Police are collecting data about criminals while preparing to launch an Android application for facial recognition within a month in the state, they

The Haryana Police are collecting data about criminals while preparing to launch an Android application for facial recognition within a month in the state, they said.

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The police said the Digital Investigation Training and Analysis Centre (DITAC) team, which was set up in 2016 in Traffic Tower in Sushant Lok- 1 for digital investigation and training in a bid to enhance cyber policing and monitor social media content, is preparing a new tool and application for the state.

The centre, comprising a Cyber Forensic Lab equipped with high-end tools, provides training in advanced digital investigations to police personnel from Haryana and other state police departments besides facilitating exclusive monitoring of social media content.

The police said the DITAC is operated by a state police (crime branch of Haryana CID) team in collaboration with the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO).

Anil Rao, the additional director general of police, Criminal Investigation Department (CID), said that they are in the process of launching the facial recognition system application. “This application will help the police personnel deployed on the frontlines to detect criminals. It will recognise human faces, typically by recording the unique ratios between an individual’s facial features, such as eyes, nose and mouth. The technology can be applied using facial features as biometric identifiers, that is, to identify individuals based on just a photo or video of their face,” he said. The application will analyse faces on a CCTV camera to catch a suspect in an investigation or day-to-day policing to combat crime on roads or public events. The technology will enable the police to scan crowds and pick out faces that match huge databases of suspects.

Once the data is complete, police personnel across the state will download the application on their Android mobile phones and use it to find suspects involved in serious and heinous crimes. The application will analyse faces on CCTV cameras to catch a suspect. The technology will enable the police to scan crowds and pick out faces that match huge databases of suspects.

More CCTV cameras will be installed across the cities in coming years, the police said.

Rao said they are introducing new tools and technology to improve surveillance. “The facial recognition system will be connected to a network of cameras which will automatically track an individual as they move in and out of coverage, even if no other information is known about them,” he said.

The DITAC will soon start training police personnel from each district, the police said, adding that they have already trained 1,292 Haryana Police personnel of various ranks and officials from other organisations such as IB, Army, NTRO, Assam Police, Goa Police, Punjab Police and Uttrakhand Police.

Rao said DITAC deals with confidential matters concerning police investigations and several courses have been conducted such as monitoring social media, Cyber Forensics, Technology Acquisition of Smartphones, ATM and Netbanking fraud, Cyber Crime Investigation, Training on Technical Aspects in Investigation of Crime against Women and Children, Collection and Preservation of Digital/Electronic Evidences, Mobile and Disk Forensics.