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Automated Facial Recognition System (AFRS)

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July 13, 2019

Why in News?

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) released a Request for Proposal for an Automated Facial Recognition System (AFRS) to be used by police officers across the country.

What is AFRS?

  • AFRS works by maintaining a large database with photos and videos of peoples’ faces.
  • Then, a new image of an unidentified person is compared to the existing database to find a match and identify the person.
  • Neural networking is the artificial intelligence technology used for pattern-finding and matching.

What does the NCRB request call for?

  • The National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) Request for Proposal calls for gathering CCTV footage, as well as photos from newspapers, raids, and sketches.
  • The project is aimed at being compatible with other biometrics.
  • It will be a mobile and web application hosted in NCRB’s Data Centre in Delhi, but used by all police stations in the country.
  • AFRS will play a very vital role in improving outcomes in the area of Criminal identification and verification.
  • It facilitates easy recording, analysis, retrieval and sharing of Information between different organisations.

Are there any AFRS in use in India?

  • The current facial recognition in India is done manually.
  • AFRS (automatic) is a new idea the country has started to experiment with.
  • “DigiYatra” using facial recognition for airport entry was trialled in the Hyderabad airport recently.
  • State governments have also taken their own steps towards facial recognition. E.g. Telangana police launched their own system in 2018

How will the new database fit in what already exists?

  • As NCRB has proposed integrating AFRS with multiple existing databases, there will be an improvement in the outcome.
  • The databases to be integrated with AFRS are -
    1. NCRB’s Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS),
    2. Integrated Criminal Justice System (ICJS),
    3. Immigration, Visa and Foreigners Registration & Tracking (IVFRT), 
    4. Koya Paya portal on missing children,
    5. State-specific systems.

How far has CCTNS progressed?

  • This project is accessible to the CBI, IB, NIA, ED and NCB.
  • Following the Mumbai terror attacks, CCTNS was envisaged as a countrywide integrated database on crime incidents and suspects.
  • It also plans to offer citizen services such as passport verification, crime reporting, online tracking of case progress, etc.
  • There was a proposal for integrating CCTNS’s database with the database of the Central Finger Print Bureau (CFPB).
  • NCRB is currently rolling out the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS) and its integration with CCTNS.

What are the concerns?

  • Cyber experts have cautioned against government’s abuse of this technology.
  • There is an ongoing privacy debate in the US regarding the use of facial recognition technology.
  • Indian citizens would be more vulnerable in the absence of a Data Protection Law in the country.
  • Use of surveillance cameras and facial recognition constrict the rights of particular class of people.

 

Source: The Indian Express

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