Why in the news?

  • The NATGRID is gaining momentum as central agencies and police actively search for information.

National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID)

  • What is it?: An integrated intelligence-sharing platform under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
  • Establishment:
    • Conceptualised in 2009 after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, highlighting gaps in inter-agency information flow.
    • Operational since 31 December 2020; inaugurated formally in 2022.
  • Aim: Acts as a master database for counter-terrorism by linking multiple government and private-sector databases.
  • Objectives:
    • Counter-terrorism: Tracks movement of suspects across states/databases.
    • Economic & organised crime detection: Helps in analysing hawala, narcotics, money laundering networks.
    • Early-warning system: Generates alerts through algorithms to prevent attacks or crimes.
    • Internal security strengthening: Bridges information gaps between central and state agencies.
    • Human rights protection: By reducing arbitrary profiling and depending on data-backed pattern recognition.
  • Features:
    • Collates diverse datasets like immigration records, bank transactions, credit card usage, telecom data, tax filings, air/rail travel, etc.
    • Real-time access to patterns and linkages from 21 data sources.
    • Data is end – end encrypted.
    • Includes RAW, IB, ED, DRI, CBDT, CBIC, and state police, ensuring seamless information sharing.

Source: The Hindu