Samajho's Android app | Samajho's IOS app | Youtube Channel | Telegram Channel | Instagram Channel
POLICE, TECH AND PREJUDICE
What the article is about?
- Talks about the concerns associated with digital policing methods and caste-based prejudice prevailing.
Syllabus: GS-I Caste-based prejudices; GS-II Criminal Justice system; GS-III Technology and related issues; Essay – Concerns associated with technology
Digital Policing methods:
- Recently, the central government approved the implementation of Phase II of the Inter-Operable Criminal Justice System (ICJS) project by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
- ICJS is a national platform for enabling integration of the main IT system used for the delivery of Criminal Justice in the country.
- It seeks to integrate the five pillars of the system:
- Police (through Crime and Criminal Tracking and Network Systems),
- e-Forensics for Forensic Labs,
- e-Courts for Courts,
- e-Prosecution for Public Prosecutors and
- e-Prisons for Prisons.
- National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) will be responsible for the implementation of the project in association with the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
- Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) is a plan scheme conceived in the light of the experience of a non-plan scheme namely – Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA).
- CCTNS is a Mission Mode Project under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Specific concerns mentioned in the article:
- A direct threat to SC judgment in KS Puttaswamy case, related to the fundamental right to privacy
- Digital policing measures may lead to mass surveillance, particularly of certain oppressed caste communities.
- Nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes were ascribed “criminality by birth” and considered as “hereditary criminals addicted to the systematic commission of non-bailable offences” under the colonial Criminal Tribes Act, 1871.
- It has been replaced with the murky Habitual Offenders (HO) provisions.
Conclusion:
- Technology can make policing better and also more dangerous
- Sufficient safeguards to be adopted to balance justice and rights.
