NATGRID to use Big Data & analytics to track suspects

NEW DELHI: Government's ambitious counter terrorism programme, NATGRID, will utilise technologies like Big Data and analytics to study and analyse the huge amounts of data from various intelligence and enforcement agencies to help track suspects and prevent such attacks.

National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID), a post Mumbai 26/11 attack measure, aims to check lack of real time information that was considered a major hurdle in detecting US terror suspect David Headley's movement across the country during his multiple visits between 2006 and 2009.

NATGRID will utilise Big Data and Analytics to study huge amounts of data generated from 21 data sources of various intelligence and enforcement agencies to analyse events in order to get a better picture as well as to trail suspects.

"Government has the NATGRID programme, which is looking at national security. I think they are still making a determination as to which portion of it is safely given to somebody else to do and which they can do themselves," Infosys Vice President and India Business Head Raghu Cavale told PTI.

He said the government is aware of the vast opportunities presented by Big Data and analytics and it consults a lot of people on such issues.

"For example, the Finance Ministry's Financial Intelligence Unit looks into how people look at stuff. People (companies) build tools for it but, it is still run by officials of the unit," he added.

An official source said the government is talking to some IT companies to utilise such technologies for data mining and gain a wider view of the activities of suspects and also disseminating data to get a better sense of incidents in real time.

Without naming the firms involved, the source added that these IT companies will provide the technology, but their functioning will be in the hands of government officials.

Explaining the opportunities presented by Big Data and analytics, Cavale said: "Can you predict using algorithms, coding this data, that there is some element of fraud that had occurred or there are patterns that people want it to occur or discern patters of some fraudulent activity.

"This is something that lot of policy planners are looking at and that is in the realm of economic data," he added.

He further said: "But, then today no illegal activity or which is physically illegal cannot be done without economic linkage. So how do you link it with economic linkage. How do you link it with logistical linkage? Now, there are answers, which can easily be caught by mining the data that we have."

Such technologies can track one's digital fingerprints, thereby making it easier for law enforcement agencies to track suspects and also analyse events to provide more insights to agencies, he added.