Police in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar district have installed high-focus CCTV cameras that have an integrated facial recognition system powered by artificial intelligence. According to officials, the cameras can be used to quickly detect the movement of militants, overground workers of militant groups and other criminals.
The system, developed by a Chennai-based company, has been installed at Thathri, the entry point to Kishtwar district from Doda. Soon, it will also be replicated at Margon Top and Sinthan Top, the two other entry points to the hilly district from Anantnag in South Kashmir, Kishtwar Senior Superintendent of Police Khalil Poswal said.
Police already have CCTV cameras installed at various public spaces across the Union Territory, and officers later use the footage to manually look for the movement of militants.
The new system is integrated with a database containing the photographs of militants, OGWs and criminals, and can automatically try to match faces captured in the CCTV footage with the database, officials said. Poswal said he got the idea of adding AI-powered facial recognition technology to CCTV cameras after visiting an Israeli stall at an expo held in New Delhi.
High focus cameras can automatically screen the faces of the people sitting inside vehicles passing through the points where the system is installed, and sound an alert for police in case the face of any person matches any photograph stored in the database. According to Poswal, these cameras are capable of matching the photograph with the database even if a person is wearing a mask.
“We will approach other districts in the UT, including Kashmir, asking for photographs and other details of militants, OGWs and criminals in their respective areas for storing them in our database, so that we immediately come to know if any of them enters Kishtwar district,’’ he said.
“We plan to develop an app, so that all police officials in the district can download it on their mobile phones and get real-time information about the presence or movement of any suspect from among the crowd while taking video of an area where CCTV cameras are not installed, especially public rallies of VIPs,” he said. Later, this system will be integrated with the CCTNS (Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems) portal at the national level, he said.
