NATGRID

IN NEWS:

• The National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) to access the centralised online database of Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS), a platform that links around 14,000 police stations. 

ABOUT NATGRID:

• The NATGRID will enable multiple security and intelligence agencies to access a database related to immigration entry and exit, banking and telephone details, among others, from a common platform.
• The project, initially started in 2009 with a budget of ?2,800 crore, is an online database for collating scattered pieces of information and putting them together on one platform.
• At least 10 Central government agencies, such as the Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing and others will have access to the data on a secured platform.
• NATGRID was exempted from the Right to Information Act, 2005 under sub-section (2) of Section 24.
• The NATGRID links intelligence and investigation agencies. The 10 user agencies will be linked independently with certain databases which will be procured from 21 providing organisations including telecom, tax records, bank, immigration etc. to generate intelligence inputs.

PRELIMS QUESTION:

Q. Consider the following statements regarding NATGRID:

1. It is primarily a platform for intelligence collection.
2. For central agencies, the data access on NATGRID is restricted to State police records.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

1. 1 only
2. 2 only
3. Both 1 and 2
4. Neither 1 nor 2

Answer to Prelims question