For a criminal, whose details are not available in the police database, security agencies are trying to get new software and improved face-recognition technology to enable the officials to get deep into social media about them, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said Thursday.

According to Singh, cybercrimes were proving to be a huge challenge to the security establishment. He further said that the security agencies have come to know that terrorists were using the ‘dark internet’ to recruit operatives and to “sell and purchase confidential information by big criminals.”

For this reason, he said, a cyber-security division was being created in the home ministry. He said these on the sidelines of three-day Defence and Homeland Security Expo and Conference 2018, organized by the PHD Chamber and was inaugurated by the Minister. He also said that the importance of utilizing drones to ensure security has increased and the central government will soon introduce a policy in this regard for its usage in the country.

“I am fully confident that drones will be very useful for our security forces. I have seen their capabilities and utility in the conduct of anti-naxal operations,” he said. The home minister then took the subject of “new tech-edge” that the country’s security agencies are trying to procure.

“We can track criminals through the CCTV cameras. But at times, it is very difficult to identify and recognize them. We are trying that face recognition technology is better improved so that if a criminal is not identified by CCTV cameras, there should be a technology to get his face recognised. This is what we are trying… We are also trying that if there is no information about them (criminals) in the CCTNS (crime and criminal tracking network system), we should have such software that can dig into the social media network and collate information about such elements,” the home minister said.

According to Singh, the challenges apart from all these faced by Indian security agencies and forces under his ministry’s command was to ensure reliable security for India’s more than 15,000 km border and over 7,000-km sea border which cannot be ignored. He also said that he will very soon launch a pilot project for laser-fencing border security in Jammu region.

“We are testing similar laser fences, radars and non-physical barriers at other border locations in Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat and Assam. The country’s borders need to be effectively secured,” the home minister said. He lauded the security forces and agencies and he said that it was an achievement that there has “not been even one major incident of terrorism in the country” in the past four years of rule by BJP-led government at the Centre.

“Organized crime and terrorism are the biggest challenges for us… We know that these elements are using new technology and sophisticated weapons. That is why technical upgrade and modernization of the central and state police forces is necessary and these two should go together,” he said.

Singh went on to say that his ministry has taken steps to simplify the purchasing procedures for security equipment’s, weapons and gadgets for the security forces and “now it is a two-tier system as compared to the previous three-tier task.”

“If it requires that we will have to delegate more financial powers to the chiefs of the security forces, we will do that too,” Singh said. He assured that the CCTNS, a comprehensive national computer-based police database, will be “effectively launched” across the country.

Concluding his speech, the Union Home Minister said that he promises the Indian defense manufacturing industry that he will soon hold meetings with Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu regarding the difficulties faced by them in getting production licenses. “I will see to it that it is simplified and streamlined,” he said.

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