NATGRID

News:The National Intelligence Grid(NATGRID) project wants to link social media accounts to the huge database of records related to immigration entry and exit,banking and telephone details among others.

Facts:

About National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID):

• It is an integrated intelligence grid connecting databases of core security agencies to collect comprehensive patterns of intelligence that can be readily accessed by intelligence agencies.

Functions of NATGRID:

• Under NATGRID,21 sets of databases will be networked to achieve quick, seamless and secure access to desired information for intelligence/enforcement agencies.
• The database would be accessible to authorised persons from 11 agencies on a case to case basis and only for professional investigations into suspected cases of terrorism.
• It will utilize technologies like Big Data and analytics to study and analyze the huge amounts of data from various intelligence and enforcement agencies to help track suspected terrorists and prevent terrorist attacks.

Importance of NATGRID:

• India is a place where many terror networks operate that carry out attacks from time to time.Despite prone to such terror attacks,India don’t have a well-formulated database of these terror networks.
• The idea is to collate and analyze vital data to get a complete view of a situation.Hence,the details that take one to three months can be had within minutes.
• NATGRID will tackle the problem of coordination mechanism regarding data transfer from one agency to another agency.
• Due to federal nature of government,the coordination at the center and states level is also lacking and in the case of any emergency,the response mechanism is not effective.Hence,NATGRID will be effective in solving this problem.

Concerns:

• There can be misuse of digital databases against the citizens, it may compromise individual privacy and even violate national security.
• The crucial intelligence information, if available to many agencies can be leaked and used against the nation.
• The data can also be misused by state agencies itself and surveillance like situation against every citizen is against the democratic principle.