Sub-inspector Prakash walked through a maze of lanes and bylanes in Otteri last week searching for Munniyan, a ganja peddler. He had passed the suspect, but returned empty-handed. Reason: Munniyan tonsured his head and changed his appearance to escape the officer’s eye.A week later, police returned to the locality carrying a smartphone with IDENTIX app. Prakash opened the app and scanned the lanes for Munniyan’s face. Before long, the peddler was identified despite the shaved head, leading to his arrest. This new tech has the potential to substantially improve criminal investigation.Police have uploaded about 5,300 criminal profiles to the Amazon cloud database. Each person’s profile stores up to five photographs covering frontal, left, right and other views.A street search now reaches the cloud database within seconds, and IDENTIX (Identity and Intelligence) connects field policing with Amazon Rekognition’s facial-search service. Those angles matter when a face is captured from the side or another difficult position. Investigators can upload a CCTV frame, use a phone camera or submit photographs through IDENTIX on authenticated Android or iOS devices.Amazon Rekognition first locates the face in the uploaded image. It then converts the face into a numerical pattern that computers can compare. “The original photographs remain attached to each criminal profile. Amazon stores their numerical patterns in a searchable database and checks the new face against existing records,” said P Vasudevan, a facial recognition expert.“The system ranks the nearest profiles and applies an 85% similarity threshold. A record appears as a possible match only when its score crosses that level,” he said.Police said the existing face recognition system was time-consuming and returned about 20 similar records. That system ran on police servers and depended mainly on clear frontal photographs. IDENTIX uses cloud processing and can work with several reference angles.A senior police officer from Greater Chennai Police (GCP) said, “When we get a crime video footage, we can now upload it and promptly check whether the suspect involved matches anyone in our records,” he said. The platform connects 9,751 active cases and records of 562 narcotics offenders. Police said it also carries profiles of history-sheeters placed under watch across the city.The app, developed on the orders of Chennai city commissioner of police A Amalraj, will be used by special wings, beat patrol teams and officers across crime hotspots.IDENTIX can alert field teams when a possible match involves someone on a priority watchlist. This could help trace offenders outside areas where local officers know them. “The technology does not establish guilt. An app-generated match remains a lead, which investigators and senior officers must verify through case records and other evidence,” said Amarnath, a technology expert.Police plan to expand IDENTIX in phases. Future versions may connect directly with CCTV cameras and video feeds, reducing the need to extract and upload frames manually.
