India to use AI to track criminals, find missing persons

• The first to set it off will be Kerala Police who will soon use facial recognition technology backed by AI.
  
• The AI technology can identify actions, objects and people in hundreds of hours of a video footage.
  
• The technology will use state, national database for the purpose of tracking a criminal or finding missing persons.

Artificial Intelligence-powered facial recognition technology will soon become a part of the Standard Law Enforcement toolkit of the Kerala Police.

The department’s cyber research facility, Cyberdome, has developed AI algorithms that will help local police scan hundreds of hours of video footage and hunt for a particular object or person. For example, “a person wearing black hat” or “number of yellow cars” on the road, over a certain time window.

The technology can identify actions and can classify them as a fight, accident or crowd gathering. It can also trace objects and people in a video. This project is under the vigilance of State Police Chief Loknath Behera and IG Manoj Abraham.

Earlier, after getting the required information from the victim, the police force used to search for a certain object or person manually, to solve the case or find a missing person. The whole process was and is exceedingly time consuming. However, the new technology is equipped to do the same ‘search’ quicker and more accurately.

The new tech also enables the police to compare faces of the suspected law offenders to the department’s existing database of previously known offenders. It furthermore also plans to integrate the national database into the technology. This would include the information of civilians as well, which will be obtained from driving licences, passport records and other biometric documents.

They also plan to configure the system for smarter and tighter security at airports, railway stations and urban hubs and use it to monitor ‘actions’ 24/7 and trigger an alert if a person or a vehicle behaves suspiciously. It is also being considered for enhancing VIP security.

AI technology will also be useful in the quick detection of accidents, traffic situations, fire and other hazards. Furthermore, it will help enforcing traffic rules by using its ability to detect objects like helmets.

If all goes well, India will be one of the first few countries to use AI for law enforcement.

Last month, Staqu, a Gururam-based startup also helped Indian law enforcement agencies with AI technology via an app that offered criminal identity registration and tracking missing persons. The programme was used by the Punjab Police, under the Punjab Artificial Intelligence System (PAIS).