Hi-tech criminal tracking system in T Nagar

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For the first time in the history of policing in Tamil Nadu, a criminal identification and tracking system will be used to monitor the shopping crowd at the city’s shopping hub of T Nagar for criminals.

The 16 surveillance cameras fixed on Usman Road and Ranganathan Street in T Nagar, functioning on a Wi-Fi base, will identify kn­o­wn pickpockets and cri­minals from the crowd if their images are already stored in the surveillance system. If found successful, this criminal identification and tracking system will go a long way in tracing kn­o­wn criminals anywhere in the state
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Already, images of 200 known accused are stored in the system.

The project, supported by the Usman Road Traders As­sociation, is already in place and can identity and ca­pture video images of known accused and match it with the stored images.

This criminal identificat­i­on and tracking system is expected to help police tra­ck down history-sheeters pr­owling on the busy Usm­an Road area filled with Deepavali shoppers.

“The software can identity criminals from video images even if the stored images are 15-20 years old. It can identify people with or without hair, with or without beard, using face recognition techniques. Every human face has distinct characteristics, which never change in one’s lifetime.

“As soon as the particular person is identified, the software alerts the policemen monitoring the visuals,” noted M. Senthil of Mars Elec­tronics Cor­poration, the company providing support for the technology developed in Germ­any, for the project.

The Wi-Fi base installed on a building in Usman Road, allows high resolution video cameras to stream images even from a distance of 3 km.

“If a criminal commits a crime in Tirunelveli and gets into a train and lands in Egmore station, he can be traced as soon as he arrives, using the surveillance camera supported by the criminal identification and tracking system,” said a police official.