Telangana DGP launches CID portal, jail-release tracker and face-recognition app

Telangana Director General of Police C.V. Anand on Wednesday launched a set of technology-driven initiatives for the Criminal Investigation Department at the police headquarters in Hyderabad, including a public portal, a jail-release monitoring system and an Android-based facial recognition application meant for field verification.

A Citizen Feedback Centre has been set up to gather direct responses from people who have recently used police services, among them filing petitions or FIRs, paying e-challans and getting a passport verified. Anand said the reforms were aimed at making police services more transparent, accountable and efficient while strengthening public trust. A statement from the force said it remained committed to citizen-friendly policing, transparency and steady improvement in service delivery.

A digital case-management platform built by the Women Safety Wing will link all 35 Bharosa centres through a single case file that follows a survivor from first contact to closure, taking in registration, counselling, medical help, legal aid and rehabilitation. It replaces paper registers and offers live statewide dashboards with 23 standard reports available on demand.

The CID's own portal, cid.tspolice.gov.in, is now open to the public, a step the department described as being at the heart of its digital transformation.

To keep watch on repeat offenders, Telangana Police built the Jail Release Surveillance System by integrating the NIC e-Prisons platform with CCTNS. According to the DGP, it automates release monitoring, sends SMS alerts to local stations and officers, and provides statewide dashboards, AI-based analytics and prisoner-search tools. The system is intended to strengthen coordination between prisons and the police. Anand said automated data synchronisation and crime classification would help investigators spot criminal networks and push policing towards intelligence-led work.

The Mobile Face Search and Face Recognition Systems apps run on Android and draw on a database of more than 9.8 lakh photographs, returning a match in about 15 seconds, the police said. The department presents the tool as a rapid field-verification aid and says it can help identify suspects, people who have died, unidentified bodies and those reported missing.

Anand also released five volumes of standard operating procedures. They deal with offences against the body, offences against property, crimes involving women and children, special and local laws, and general offences. The manuals are meant to standardise the work of investigating officers across the state, improve the quality of probes and lift conviction rates in criminal cases.

He was accompanied by DG (Law and Order) Mahesh Bhagwat, DG (CID) Charu Sinha, ADGP Akun Sabharwal, IG (Personnel and Logistics) Gajarao Bhupal and other senior officers.

(With inputs from media reports)