Following the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, India had implemented a wide range of data sharing and surveillance schemes. Though developed under different governments the purpose of these schemes has been to increase public safety and security by tackling crime and terrorism.
As such, two data sharing schemes have been proposed – the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) and the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS), as well as several surveillance systems, such as the Lawful Intercept and Monitoring (LIM) system, the Network Traffic Analysis system (NETRA), state Internet Monitoring Systems and the Central Monitoring System (CMS).
——————————————————————————-
NATGRID :
The National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID), an attached office of the Ministry of Home Affairs, has been conceived to develop a cutting edge framework to enhance India’s counter-terror capabilities.
⇒ NATGRID is considered to be a data linking and mining project and the initial stage would have involved the “real-time linking” of data between various agencies.
⇒ NATGRID will utilize analytics to process the huge volumes of data generated from the 21 data sources so as to analyse events, match patterns and track suspects. Data mining appears to be at the core of NATGRID, which aims to create comprehensive patterns of intelligence by linking the 21 data sources and analysing them
⇒ Once fully functional NatGrid is supposed to enable all the eleven security and intelligence agencies, including RAW, IB, Enforcement Directorate, National Investigation Agency (NIA), CBI, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and others, to process their queries and get results, in real time, on virtually any individual or entity.
⇒ It will help in zeroing in on a suspect by converging and processing all kinds of personal details including medical and financial information, iris, fingerprints and transactions of an individual like railway and air travel, income tax, phone calls, bank account details, credit card transactions, visa and immigration records, property records, Aadhaar and NPR cards, and driving licences.
———————————————————————————
Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) :
Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) is a plan scheme conceived in the light of experience of a non-plan scheme namely – Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA).
CCTNS is a Mission Mode Project under the National e-Governance Pan of Govt of India. CCTNS aims at creating a comprehensive and integrated system for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of policing through adopting of principle of e-Governance and creation of a nationwide networking infrastructure for evolution of IT-enabled-state-of-the-art tracking system around ‘Investigation of crime and detection of criminals’
The CCTNS was formally launched in early January 2013 in New Delhi.
It will provide a comprehensive database of crimes and criminals, which will enable law enforcement agencies in tracking down criminals moving from one place to another.
CCTNS will be a wide database. It will help in arresting criminals and investigating any case.
Why CCTNS :
“The police stations in the country are, today, virtually unconnected islands. Thanks to telephones and wireless, and especially thanks to mobile telephones, there is voice connectivity between the police station and senior police officers, but that is about all. There is no system of data storage, data sharing and accessing data. There is no system under which one police station can talk to another directly. There is no record of crimes or criminals that can be accessed by a Station House Officer, except the manual records relating to that police station. Realising the gross deficiency in connectivity, the Central government is implementing an ambitious scheme called “Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS)
Objectives of ‘CCTNS’ :
1. Make the Police functioning citizen friendly and more transparent by automating the functioning of Police Stations.
2. Improve delivery of citizen-centric services through effective usage of ICT.
3. Provide the Investigating Officers of the Civil Police with tools, technology and information to facilitate investigation of crime and detection of criminals.
4. Improve Police functioning in various other areas such as Law and Order, Traffic Management etc.
5. Facilitate Interaction and sharing of Information among Police Stations, Districts, State/UT headquarters and other Police Agencies.
6. Assist senior Police Officers in better management of Police Force
7. Keep track of the progress of Cases, including in Courts
8. Reduce manual and redundant Records keeping
——————————————————————————
Data Sharing Centres and Bodies ==>
The National Cyber Coordination Centre :
Government has approved setting up of the National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC), which will screen online threats and coordinate with the intelligence agencies to handle issues related to the national security.
It is a critical component of India’s plans to beef up its cyber security against hackers and espionage as well as to track terrorist activity online
CERT-In will be the main agency handling the establishment of NCCC.
This Centre will have top experts from the field and it will be run like similar organisation in other countries such as the US, the UK, France, Germany, etc
NCCC will coordinate between intelligence agencies, specifically during network intrusions and cyber attacks. It’s mandate may also include cyber intelligence sharing among agencies.
Criticism of NCCC:
NCCC would be concentrating on meta data and not personal data, the fact that it would actively coordinate cyber intelligence and improve information sharing, makes citizens more vulnerable to the government. What worsens the situation is the lack of a privacy law and data protection laws (PDF) and transparency in the measures being taken, said officials from the ministry of communications & IT
———————————————————————————
The Forensics Science Laboratories:
⇒ Under the Information Technology Act Forensic Science Laboratories are ‘Examiners of Electronic Evidence’ for the purpose of providing expert opinion on digital evidence.
⇒ Divisions within Forensic Science Laboratories include: physics, chemistry, biology, serology, ballistics, documents, finger prints, forensic psychology, photo, computer forensic science & scientific aids divisions with laboratories for computer forensics and DNA profiling
⇒ They are under the administrative control of the CBI
——————————————————————————-
The National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) :
In 2012 the NCTC was proposed as a centralized body under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, for the purpose of addressing and deploying counter terrorism measures of the Union and state governments.
The NCTC draw up and coordinate counter-terrorism plans, integrate intelligence gathering and coordinate with all existing investigating and intelligence agencies.
The basic idea is to prevent confusion regarding intelligence inputs and also ensure that none of the police forces from the states enter into a blame game regarding intelligence sharing as one got to see during the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai.
Till now the national counter terrorism centre (NCTC) of India has failed to take off the ground.
——————————————————————————
Network Traffic Analysis (NETRA) System
⇒ The NETRA system has been developed by the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR), a lab under the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)
⇒ It will be deployed by all security agencies to capture any dubious voice traffic passing through software likeSkype or Google Talk, besides write-ups in tweets, status updates, emails, instant messaging transcripts, internet calls, blogs and forums.
⇒ When NETRA is operationalised, security agencies will get a big handle on monitoring activities of dubious people and organisations which use the Internet to carry out nefarious designs
——————————————————————————-
Central Monitoring System (CMS) :
It is Government’s ambitious electronic intelligence monitoring system
It aims to stop the leakage of information from the service providers’ end by building a centralised monitoring system, which will be monitored by the agencies, authorised to intercept the calls and internet communication.
The CMS, if implemented, will be connected with the Telephone Call Interception System (TCIS) which will help monitor voice calls, SMS and MMS, fax communications on landlines, CDMA, video calls, GSM and 3G networks
The total cost of the project would be approximately `590 crore and entire monitoring system which is being designed and integrated by the Telecom Enforcement, Resource and Monitoring and C-DoT will be supervised by the Intelligence Bureau. All the interception platforms, including PSTN, GSM and CDMA technology, will be easily intercepted as CMS would provide convergence of all lines at one location
