 The reason we are discussing this topic is because it's kind of in the news of late because some of the higher judiciary officials were mentioning this so What is the integrated criminal justice system unlike what's in the news? It's not something that's coming out of the judiciary something that is coming out of the Ministry of Home Affairs so the Integrated criminal justice system is interlinking several e-governance projects It's interlinking the e-codes project at the judiciary the e-prisons project with the prisons department the e-polis project essentially digital police project, which there have been many but the previous one before ICJS was the CCPNS crime and criminal networks and systems So you have the e-forensics essentially all the forensics laboratories in India are interconnected and You have the e-tribunals e-journal justice. So you're interlinking a lot of these e-government systems To create according to MHA. This is not something that I am saying according to MHA They are using this to create 360 degree profiles of everyone inside the criminal justice system now What would this interlinking of System look like it will look like essentially a series of dashboards. It's you're talking about data and data driven governance this is about Allowing different arms of the criminal justice system to access each other's details via dashboards I'm going to show you some of these dashboards at least From what we know from some of the publicly available Ministry of Home Affairs presentations So as I was saying ICJS essentially is a central repository of every individual in the criminal justice system It's being implemented by the MHA. Essentially the NIC national informatics center is the one developing it But the governance control at some level for all the data is at the MHA there is Oversight by NCRD. I I don't think I should call it oversight but some level of interaction between MHA and NCRD which is part of MHA And you have the judiciary's involvement because of the e-codes projects because it's the judiciary which maintains the e-codes project So that direct involvement it's happening under their direction at some level as well, but it's being implemented at MHA And so the important question is if you're trying to link these Databases right like essentially all of these e-governance projects are databases. So how do you do that? You have to interlink them based on Individuals unique identity that's the only way you can interlink These systems otherwise it's hard to say track someone who's Already a prisoner who is already in the prison but who has committed a past crime or Suddenly the police found out that a past crime which they were investing elsewhere is also linked to this person The only way you can match all of these is if you can uniquely identify this individual Inside the criminal justice system. So I'm not going to say that it's entirely based on agar But the idea essentially is that you have to uniquely identify every individual in your criminal justice system so This is how it looks like. It's a it's a visualization that I took from MHA magazine It's in It's listed in the reference section on the registration page So there's a bunch of documents that if you want to go check back you can find this So the icj system essentially as I was saying is going to interlink e-codes cctns e-prison You have the prosecution which is essentially the department of Ministry of law, I guess And you have the forensic laboratories And you have access for other agencies like the national investigation agency, which is Which can use this data to identify criminals But all of this is based on what is called Pillars, which is basically each of these systems become a pillar like Police becomes a pillar, courts become a pillar, prisons become a pillar inside the criminal justice system What does this allow? It actually allows a pan-india wide search of criminals inside the criminal justice system So search across the pillars data of cctns, e-codes, e-prisons, prosecution, nia Etc. So they're using at some level nlp to try to Text mine some of the court records And trying to generate some analytics here, so it's the MHA which Says every other time that this is going to allow this 360 degree profiling of persons involved in various pillars and facility to tag or exchange the profile And this is interesting because this whole idea of 360 degree profiling at some level It emerges post the initiation of the other project for the state Rest and data hubs or Even part of cctns, right? cctns was okay. I'll get to what cctns is So yeah, so if you're talking about the history of police databases in India India has a vast history of Policing documents, but most of them are not really organized But the idea of using fingerprints in policing goes back to colonial era But what I know to some extent is the modern police crystallization efforts at some level Took place inside various departments within MHA, but at the state police level you have the ap police interconnection of police stations Around 2002, this is the time when e-governance efforts were at a peak level in India All of this was before the national e-governance plan Then the deli police got its own network called the zip network Excuse me so Then you have the cctns project which comes out in 2009 It was part of the national e-governance plan Then the integrated criminal justice system takes over cctns project in 2015 So essentially the integrated criminal justice system is an evolution of cctns And Because also the cctns project was getting delayed and it was the ministry of home affairs which actually proposed to the cabinet committee on economic affairs to Extend the cctns project and to further fund the icjs project around 2015. This is when the cabinet actually approved it So the cctns is essentially the interlinking of all police stations Uh, this this happened in the backdrop of the bombay attacks Okay, but it's the origin of interlinking of police stations is not something new People always knew that uh, there were issues of interpolice department data sharing like ap police won't share information with them and police Even though there could be issues at the border between these two states, right? So the information was always Uh in silos and this kind of positive problem for msa uh, so cctns kind of comes through the national e-governance plan, but it kind of Uh, it kind of gets fast tracked Around the because of the bombay attacks So you see that they're trying to interlink all of the police stations and The it it actually started with the coastal police stations because course were kind of the large At that point of time, uh, there are a bunch of documents around this, uh, within the parliament if one wants to look at this history But so the modern cctns database again, it's it's essentially a network, right? It's a crime and criminal tracking networks and systems so It's it's similar to icjs network how icjs is a network of various databases You would find that cctns is also a network of all police stations So at the base layer, uh, there is a data sharing platform between police stations But on top of that each state police can collect information On their own they can basically do more than what the mhc wants them to do So the cctns at the base layer part of its network You have the missing children database because You know the children when they go missing it's not necessarily that they are in your particular jurisdiction There are interstate gangs which are involved in this So when the missing children database came and it got integrated into cctns But this at some level system is also with the ministry of human and child development The other important system the cctns has is essentially they have this fingerprint recognition system with all the fingerprints which They have collected for forensics The upcoming system that's part of cctns is special recognition system. You have vahan Database which is linked to cctns. You have fast tag. That's also linked to cctns. So any any of the modern Systems identity databases that are coming up. They're linking them to cctns Again going back to icjs now icjs as The post cctns. I think the mhc understood how important for it to interlink databases So which is why they also kind of proposes interlinking of prisons and police departments because cctns is only Interlinking of police if it doesn't look at data. That's already already available with the prisons department or with the journal divisions or ports all of this is on the backdrop of fingerprints databases So this is how the information flow looks like so within the cctns you have FR numbers you have case details At the ports again, you have the case number. You have the FR number But when you when the prisoners say when the individual gets transferred from the police to prisons through court He gets a prisoner ID Also in all of this chain the moment you are part of this criminal justice system They try to collect your fingerprints So this data becomes an important way to identify individuals So the way to uniquely identify individuals is again Not necessarily on other but it's based on fingerprints and because that's what the mhc has been doing for a really long time This information is again intershared with the forensics department. So you have a integrated data sharing of across the criminal justice system Uh, this is the data flow that happened. So this is from a presentation by an n i c official who was presenting it to the mhc It's actually available on the registration page if you're watching it on youtube or from elsewhere You can go to the registration page and check the documents over there. So So not all the information goes to everyone. Okay, so if you look at say fingerprint data It doesn't go to the court, but it it does go to the prisons department It it goes to the forensics department. It doesn't again go to the journal justice. So you have At some level information is being shared on a need to need basis But it's being centralized at the mhc So this is what the icjs dashboard looks like when you have to submit information of an individually submit his personal details his other number pan card email id phone number driver's license his FIR numbers Part of the jurisdiction where they are the courts the forensics level please present details and once you Go into the system. Again, this presentation was made much earlier. I think around 2015 when they probably proposed this project We we don't know and what form it is right now, but this is the idea that they had in mind So when you click an individual you get all of his details from his passport other number email id over the card details again See some of these requirements of data collection is important because if you are indeed a criminal and a prisoner you are Voting rights are taken away, right? So they need to actually supply this information to the election commission so that the election commission suspends this vote right So I am not sure if how that information sharing is happening here But that actually happens the election commission gets a list of all people criminals And they actually remove them from vote or less So when you click on an individual you get all of his details and accordingly on different modes depending upon who which Administrative official you are whether you're from the business department of the courts you get access to different information So when you click on police you get access to witness details the accused the victim the arrest details the bail details Transcit and man criminal history charge shades campaign details So essentially when you're talking about building these 360 degree profiles of individuals, so you're building those via icjs and This is how this information looks like So when you look click at prison you get this prison id the affair number again accused Interestingly, they track visitors. So if you Have visited any criminal in a prison So you will have to currently you'll have to give your other number While they could say it's not being there is it's not mandatory and all but they actually force you to submit So you have co-accused so that you know who are the partners And you ensure that you're not put together I don't know what sort of protocols they use but essentially this information is being tracked. So If you are on bail or parole your details are there Essentially this information then goes to the police tip nearest police department to essentially track the individual because he's on bail or parole Moments to hospitals inter jail movements all of this is essentially which is track part of the prisons project Is now integrated with the icjs project So when you look at the court you get details about the case the summons Case transfer details appeal stage details court disposal status of trials Uh, so you also get what jail details for so for a judge He actually gets to know what the police department is doing what the prisons department is doing So it's it's a nice data for a judge to actually Understand the case better. I guess to understand criminal history of an individual. So at some level I think you're going towards this model where within the u.s. Criminal Justice system you have started seeing your rating Criminals right the potential for a crime to re-happen of an individual at some level You are trying to profile these individuals and We're not sure if they're going to rate them or if this is going to affect a judge's Decision to whether to give him bail or not, but it's it's all being tracked So again the fingerprints to pillars. This is the information that's being shared to all the divisions It's important to understand When you become part of icjs there is a permanent identification number that's being created Okay, and and I'm not saying this is other and I think so the The criminal justice department essentially the mh a in this case is creating an idea for you Which is the idea that they want to use to track every criminal so That's the idea your personal details your provisional crime numbers court cases conviction dates jail number jail admission numbers fingerprints And the way to create the permanent identification number essentially boils down to fingerprints So the moment you become part of any court case whether you're being investigated Your fingerprints will essentially be collected And that's the basis for the permanent identification number So what's the current status of icjs it was proposed in 2015 to the cabinet You have pilots that have been happening in Telangana, Delhi, Odisha, Bihar and Rajasthan from 2018-2019 So these are the fine-owned states that already have this implemented. I think they're scaling it up now Because for this to work you have to have every other states police departments business departments to be interconnected But what's actually live currently is the national search for Already existing criminals at the ncrp through the digital police dot gov dot dint portal. So if you if you are From the police department or any of the departments which are part of icjs What you could do is you could visit the digital police dot gov dot dint and you can start searching for criminals who are part of the criminal justice system, but I see jess is not just Aboard the e-prison sports or cct ns anymore because cct ns itself is being interlinked with missing children's database the drivers registration databases vehicle registration databases Even though you're not a criminal you're becoming part of this criminal justice database because They're linked to cct ns like you may not be a criminal but because you have a driver's license and you have a Vehicle that you have registered with the government and that's being linked to cct ns They can pull this data on you at any point of time. So it's not no more about criminal criminals or people who have committed crime It's essentially anyone who is going to be interacting with any criminal We are visiting them or even if you are an individual who potentially has chalance right like vehicle violations Through wah and all of that gets integrated into the criminal justice system They have plans to link immigration and passport data. We are not yet sure to what extent this has happened Uh, why is this important right like uh, what happened in telangana for example, uh This national search that they have uh to allow people to Search criminals kind of was piloted at some levels in telangana So what they essentially did the telangana police kind of went overboard Uh And started profiling every individual on the street So when when when you become And accused in a crime, uh, the first thing as I was saying they would collect your fingerprints to know if you're an existing criminal Uh, but with access to these systems what the telangana police did is they actually went on the street They asked every individual who looks suspicious to give their, um fingerprints Uh, so I think by 2015 or 2016 mha had this national automated fingerprint recognition system Which is part of ccp and as that went live So you have police department in telangana part of the pilot in 2018 doing all of this right like so in telangana At the moment you enter a police station Your fingerprints are recorded To identify if you have a if you have a criminal history and that happens through the icjs network Then you have The automated facial recognition system that's upcoming part of ccp and as that's the national level But again the pilot for it has already began in telangana and what you've witnessed in telangana is that Post biometrics, which they were doing it as early as 2015 2016 because the system went live in those days Uh, but the facial recognition system kind of went live in 2018 So you have every police with a mobile Tab who could identify anyone on those streets But the problem is not that icjs is limited to criminal justice criminals or people who are part of the criminal justice network It's interlinked to everything because in telangana What you're witnessing is the police department not only has access to icjs because All of this is at a base layer right like policing is a state subject Each state can essentially do whatever they want. Each state police can go Uh collect more details. So the telangana police essentially Uh got access to everyone's their details Because telangana has this new facial recognition based digital ID system And that kind of actually came out because the police wanted access to data of every individual in the state so These 360 degree databases like if you're talking about the upcoming facial recognition system While they're all saying that it will be limited to criminals But what we're witnessing is that increasingly The police the mha the ncrp is actually asking every other department to start sharing information So if you already have a driver's license You're part of their network because your photo details that are collected by the ministry of road transport Is already available for the mha chain I'm not bringing in aadhaar anywhere here. We don't have to go into that conspiracy theory that it's all aadhaar data But it's identity data right like any form of identity details It's biometrics at some level which are at the heart of this whether it's your photo professional recognition with your fingerprints It's being collected all of this is being happening without a law This directly violates the supreme court judgment on the right to privacy And the supreme court judgment on aadhaar where the judgment essentially says that there is no possibility of building 360 Degree databases in the country right like Extensively the idea of 360 degree databases were discussed during a judgment and the duty should ignore that But anything and everything that was discussed heavily in terms of these 360 degree databases That most people feared might happen is actually happening and it's all live And essentially icjs at the end of the day is yet another 360 degree profile database And you're going to see more of this that are going to happen not necessarily from an economic welfare point of view This is actually from the surveillance point of view for the mha chain