Use social media to reach out to public: police heads told

Use social media to communicate and disseminate information to the public, also conduct special drives on social media against offenders targeting women sexually.

These form part of resolutions taken at the National Conference of Young Superintendents of Police and Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) in the national capital under the aegis of Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD).

According to the decisions taken at the two-day conference, police heads at district level should evolve mechanism in consultation with state police chief to communicate and disseminate information to the public through social media.

With cyber crime increasing, the conference also wanted a special focus on cyber training and cyber security training for all police personnel. The training should be conducted in new emerging areas like cyber crime, crypto currency, dark web and tapping the internet monitoring capability in law and order situations.

Another area of importance highlighted in the resolutions is the creation of cyber forensic lab at the state level. A senior official said this also comes against the backdrop of rising cyber crimes and the inadequate numbers of experts to handle such cases.

Police personnel should also have a better understanding of data privacy law amid incidents of data theft and the intricacies involved in the investigations. Prudent data handling and analysis for effective policing should also be of focus, according to the conference resolutions.

Another direction was related to the 13 different projects related to internal security being developed by National Centre for Excellence in Technology for Internal Security (NCETIS), IIT Bombay. All states and paramilitary forces have to liaise with this Centre for the acquisition of technology being developed by them.

They also will have to coordinate with National Standing Task Force for Technology (NSTFT) for technology related issues. Another area highlighted was the relationship with media.

One of the suggestions raised at the conference was that officers should work with engineering students, which will help them in updating their knowledge about the new technologies.