NEW DELHI: The home ministry informed Rajya Sabha on Wednesday that the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) had been authorised to use automated facial recognition system (AFRS) for identification of criminals, unclaimed bodies and missing and found persons. It, however, insisted that this would not violate privacy, as AFRS would rely solely on police records and could be accessed only by law enforcement agencies.

Minister of state for home G Kishan Reddy, in a written reply to a question on AFRS, said approval had been accorded for AFRS implementation by the NCRB.

As per the NCRB proposal, AFRS shall facilitate identification of criminals, unidentified bodies and lost and found persons through easy recording, analysis, retrieval and sharing of information between different organisations. AFRS will be a mobile and web application hosted in NCRB’s (which manages data for police) data centre in Delhi but used by all police stations in the country.

The NCRB plans to integrate AFRS with multiple databases like crime and criminal tracking network & systems (CCTNS), integrated criminal justice system, state-specific database systems and khoya-paya portal managed by the bureau.

CCTNS is a country-wide integrated database on crime incidents and suspects that interlinks FIRs, investigations, and chargesheets of all police stations. .

Integrated criminal justice system is any computer network that allows justice practitioners and agencies to electronically access and share information between systems and across jurisdictional lines. Khoya-paya portal is a citizen-based website to exchange information on missing and found children.

Cyber experts have cautioned against potential abuse of facial recognition technology as a tool of control and the risk it poses to citizens’ privacy and data in the absence of a data protection law.

