Drones, bodycams and more: All about the Delhi Police's tech makeover

Remember RoboCop? The high-tech policeman in a dystopian future US who cleans up the city's mess with gadgets, guns and cybernetics? Things might not get that extreme here, but in 2019 Delhi Police will take concrete steps towards maintaining law and order, fighting crime with the help of technology.

Camera-mounted drones will act as eyes in the sky, keeping a watch on criminals and their activities. Laser and infrared sensor cameras will be used to monitor traffic flow on the city roads.

"By 2020, you will see technology-based policing - like the use of artificial intelligence and selflearning systems as part of advanced technologies," said a senior police official. "A lot in this direction will start in 2019," he added.

Last week, during a review meeting, Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal urged Delhi Police to emphasise on technology in all its training programmes, including scientific investigation of crime. The meeting was attended by Commissioner Amulya Patnaik and other senior officers.

"Be it in maintaining law and order or investigating cases, Delhi Police will undergo a revamp in the coming months in terms of technology," Madhur Verma, Delhi Police spokesperson, told Mail Today.

The force has appraised the LG office about the technology projects that it is taking up over the next few months for prevention, detection and investigation of crimes. These include e ebeat book, body worn cameras, Open Source Intelligence Solution (OSINT), Intelligence Management Traffic System (ITMS), Automatic Number Plate Reading Project (ANPR), Facial Recognition and Advanced Forensics. "We have been using drones occasionally. Soon, the usage will increase," Verma said. The police is also installing 10,000 CCTV cameras under the Safe City Project (from the Nirbhaya Fund).

The e-beat book is a mobile application to improve beat policing by strengthening nightpatrolling and monitoring the daily performance of police personnel. This system was started four years ago in Chennai.

Body worn cameras are a popular tool in the West - police personnel wear cameras on their bodies and turn them on during work, mostly at the crime scene. This tool also helps in monitoring the quality and level of police work. OSINT is a strategic initiative of Delhi Police to aid the investigation process by making available actionable intelligence through digital analysis of data.

ANPR is a dataset providing information on vehicle types and counts in several locations.

"The facial recognition technology, mostly used in forensic investigations, can enhance poor quality latent face images, search against mug shot databases and locate potential suspects," a police officer involved in the technological upgrading process said.

He said that the multi-functional role of the facial recognition technology will come handy in tracing missing children, remote suspect verification, security suspect identification and locating and tracking of fugitives.

The department has also procured 800 body worn cameras which will be operational soon. "The use of data analyticsbased predictive policing, connected multi-jurisdictional records, return of human intelligence as the centrepiece, centralised database for remote suspect verification, single platform for seamless delivery of services, will be a part of technology-based policing," said an official. The department has also started partnering with academic institutions to develop systems for the future.

The Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), for example, has set up a Centre for Technology and Policing which will assist Delhi Police in cyber policing, social media analysis and image processing.

"The mobile cyber forensic labs with trained staff and necessary infrastructure would be functional soon with different features like malware forensics, network forensics, cloud forensics, crypto currency analytics and cyber range," the official said. "We are also in touch with other institutions to start a training programme for the personnel. We have some personnel who are trained in using drones which we use occasionally. But we need to train more staff," he added.