NEW DELHI: The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has made a big leap forward in tracking “illegal activities” by individuals, as the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) now has the largest facial data with more than 100 crore entries, officials said.The officials said with this the NATGRID has facial data of around 80 per cent of India’s population (if there are no repeat entries) and the same would be “quite effective” in tracking criminals whom all the law enforcement agencies would be looking for.Even during this sensitive election season, this would also help enforcement agencies to clamp down on habitual criminals, they added.According to the officials the facial entries include data captured during the Covid-19 pandemic, even when individuals were wearing masks. It is to be noted here that the system, which is being used in the NATGRID, is capable of “efficiently accessing and matching” data of masked faces within minutes.A senior official managing the NATGRID architecture told this newspaper that the integrated intelligence IT infrastructure has signed Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with various government departments, including the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Income Tax department, and most of the police agencies.Noting that the data has been sourced from different departments operating at airports, the officials said, the Centre has long been spearheading the development of a comprehensive national database aimed at monitoring illicit activities such as Hawala transactions, terror financing, counterfeit currency circulation, narcotics trafficking, bomb threats, and illegal arms smuggling.With this the officials said by combining the new technology and intelligence gathering, and their empirical analysis, the government has made a leap forward in proactively deterring different types of security threats.Keeping in mind the sanctity of the privacy issue, the government has put in inbuilt features in the NATGRID to ensure that no unauthorised personal data could be accessed by anyone, the officials said, adding that this would be available to 11 central agencies and police of all states and Union Territories.
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