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Glossary
One sentence per term. Linked from the asks, the log, and Learn cards.
- CCTNS
- Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems — the police IT backbone used to store and share criminal records across states.
- DPDP Act
- Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 — India’s data protection statute; its fit with intelligence and policing databases is still contested in practice.
- FRT
- Facial recognition technology — software that matches faces in images or video against a reference database.
- “Habitual offender” database
- Police watchlists of people labeled “habitual offenders” or “bad character”; documented as overrepresenting Dalit, Bahujan, Adivasi, Vimukta, and Muslim communities.
- NATGRID
- National Intelligence Grid — a central system that lets designated agencies query many government databases from one place.
- NPR
- National Population Register — a register of usual residents; scale figures are often cited when discussing NATGRID’s reach into population data.
- Privacy judgment (2017)
- India’s Supreme Court ruled that privacy is a fundamental right and set a three-part test for state intrusion (clear law, legitimate aim, proportionality). Lawyers often call the case “Puttaswamy,” after the petitioner — Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India.
- Sousveillance
- Watching from below — people documenting the watchers, as opposed to surveillance from above by the state.