Telengana Police uses new tool to identify criminals

The State Police department of Telengana has geared up with the latest technology based system to do the facial recognition and become the first police force in the country to leverage the technology, that too by bringing it to the fingertips of its officers by incorporating in TSCOP mobile application. The facility will allow Investigation Officers (IOs) to identify potential offenders by comparing a person’s face with several lakhs of digital photographs stored in the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) .

FRS is an integrated feature of TSCOP mobile app for assisting investigation officers in providing efficient services to citizens and therby improving responsiveness, State Director General of Police M Mahendar Reddy said. This will aid investigating officers (IOs) in identifying criminals and suspects across the state in real time and at a lightning speed.

He further said that the entire process take only few seconds; after the photograph matches, the investigation officer cross checks manually and proceeds for further confirmation by using similar related information.The system would be about 90 per cent accurate, the DGP said.

The tool allows police to identify potential offenders by comparing a suspect’s face with lakhs of digital photographs of people including offenders, wanted and those missing, stored in the central database of Crime and criminal tracking Network systems (CCTNS). The technology has the capability to automatically discard the photographs of persons that do not match with the central database and hence will not be shared anywhere in the system. The central database includes photographs of offenders, missing persons and wanted criminals apart from photographs of arrested offenders published in the media.



The FRS gives only a clue which should also tally with other information related to the crime scene. However, FRS cannot be considered as evidence in the court but it can work as a suspect enquiry mechanism for a thorough probe into the case. As per the DGP, the FRS is now an integral feature of the TSCOP app and the training will be provided to IOs on how to use the system effectively for detection of crimes.