The Jharkhand Police on Thursday equipped itself with another arsenal to tame mongering of all sorts on social media platforms that could potentially be a threat to the security and safety of people. The latest in the quiver is software that can help police read between the lines disseminated on social media and exchanged between various groups especially those harbouring wicked designs against society and the State.
The software tool-Advance Application for Social Media Analytics-- has been developed by Associate Professor of Indian Institute of Information Technology-Delhi, Dr Ponnurangam Kumaraguru with assistance from the Central Government. The tool has been claimed to have helped Delhi and Mumbai police besides other ancillary branches of police in cyber patrolling. The tool facilitates information collection from mass media platforms and presents meaningful insights for decision making.
"The more information a social media platform generates the more (input for) intelligence is generated. This tool can tell who has posted the information, when the information was posted, from where it has been posted and what has been posted. Information can be harvested from social media and inferences can be harvested," said Kumar.
The tool has been installed at the Data Centre at Police Headquarters which is likely to provide a decisive lead in the battle against ultras and pre-empt anti-Government forces from luring youngsters into their fold. The Jharkhand Police requested the developer to expand the scope of the software and make amendments in code to provide vital leads from the RSS feeds of news articles. The tool in its present form helps in intelligence, investigation and maintaining law and order.
"We will use this tool not only for law and order but for intelligence purpose also. This can be used in anti-naxal operations and also in knowing if any naxal outfit is using twitter, any other media for recruitment process or to foment trouble in the State," said ADG Anurag Gupta.
The application would also provide information regarding the platform used for accessing social media. A preliminary round of training of senior police officials has been conducted on Thursday and