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eSakhsya App
Context:
Ahead of the rollout of new criminal laws on July 1, the Home Ministry tests the eSakhsya App.
About the app
- The mobile-based application is to help police record the scene of crime, search and seizure in a criminal case and upload the file on the cloud-based platform.
- The police official will have to upload a selfie after the procedure is complete.
- Each recording could be a maximum of four minutes long and several such files could be uploaded for each First Information Report (FIR), according to the details shared with State police departments.
- The mobile application developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) will be available to all police stations which register and download the App.
- It will also help uniformity in investigations, thereby increasing the conviction rate.
National Informatics Centre – NIC
- Headquarters, New Delhi
- It is under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY)and is the technology partner of the Government of India.
- It was established in 1976 with an objective to provide technology-driven solutions to Central and State Governments in various aspects of development.
- NIC has been instrumental in adopting and providing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and eGovernance support to the Central Government.
- NIC has set-up a Centre of Excellence(CoE) in Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and Application Security.
Challenges:
- Procuring hardware and cloud space is an expensive affair and many States do not have enough resources,
- Directly uploading through eSakhsya will require good Internet speed .
- Sanctity of the chain of evidence submission will have to be adhered to else, it could benefit an accused.
- The new criminal laws make everything digital; if there is slightest of issue in recording a scene of crime or procuring digital evidence, it could lead to criminals walking free.
- The BNSS mandates compulsory audio-video recording of search and seizure in each criminal case and mandatory forensic examination in all cases where an offense attracts punishment of seven years or more.
- Thus it is estimated that 11.64 lakh crimes will require crime scene photography and videography which will be a huge challenge .
