Gurugram police will soon enlist the help of cyber experts as volunteers to solve complicated and long-pending cases. These experts will work with cyber crime teams and train them in open-source intelligence tools, police said on Thursday.
Police said their cyber teams are understaffed and the number of complaints is constantly on the rise due to which pendency of cases has also gone up.
Priyanshu Dewan, assistant commissioner of police (Cyber), said they have already received around 100 applications from cyber experts who want to volunteer and have interviewed 25 of them.
“This initiative will increase community outreach and our digital presence. There are many software tools that the experts use and our cyber team will also get exposure and expert knowledge from them. A new squad will be introduced soon who will work with cyber teams as volunteers. We need proper and regular technical assistance to solve the complicated cases,” ACP Dewan said.
Police said they receive at least 1,500 complaints every month but are unable to solve most of the cases due to shortage of cyber experts and they have to depend on outsourced agencies.
ACP Dewan said these volunteers will be known as ‘cyber safety officers’ (CSOs). “The criteria for their selection are domain knowledge and practical experience in the field of cyber security. We are looking for individuals with knowledge of artificial intelligence with expertise in both technology and software. We want to create technical capabilities to predict cyber crime trends, which will help us to remain a step ahead of fraudsters,” he said.
Police said they have received over 2,000 complaints in January this year from the four cyber crime police stations across the city — East, West, South and Manesar — and have registered 46 cases. In February, they have already received 1,525 complaints and 15 cases have been registered, police added.
On March 7, 2018, the first cyber police station was inaugurated in Gurugram, for facilitating registration of cyber crime cases. In 2017, of the total 3,297 complaints received, 1,916 pertained to online banking fraud and cheating through credit or debit cards or through smartphones. A further 264 complaints were related to Facebook, another 240 of internet frauds and 51 of data theft.
According to police, CSOs will assist cyber crime police teams in conducting community outreach programmes such as ‘cyber raahgiri’ and workshops in educational institutes on the safe use of social media.
ACP Dewan said the CSOs will also help the cyber police teams in designing cyber safety interventions and projects, attend cyber police meetings, interact with students, residents’ welfare associations (RWAs) and educate parents about safeguarding their children from cyber crimes and assist police in building and enhancing social media outreach of the cyber wing.
Police said they already have a similar programme for traffic management where they have roped in road safety officers (RSOs) who help police in traffic management and creating awareness about traffic norms.
Dewan said anyone interested in joining Gurugram police as cyber expert can reach him at 9315130652 or send an email at acpcyberggm.pol@hry.gov.in.
