Cops to set up lab to watch social media

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government has decided to set up a social media lab to monitor social media activities. The decision to set up such a technical lab was triggered by the fact that lot of terror groups are active in various social media platforms and the police believe there is an urgent need to monitor such areas to extract intelligence.

The lab will be set up at a cost o Rs 32 lakh. So far the various police units were monitoring the social media on their own whenever there was a need to do so.

“The lab will have its experts to keep an eye on networks like Facebook, Twitter and many other platforms. All suspicious posts, accounts and handles will be kept under watch. The idea is to locate radical elements in the social media networks so that efforts can be taken to neutralise them,” noted an officer.

The government has also announced the decision to buy a computer aided super imposition device to match images of suspected people with that of unidentified skulls.

The department is also planning to purchase two debugging scanners to identify and locate hidden tapping devices. As per the fresh announcement made by the chief minister in the assembly on Monday, there are plans to have CCTV with internet protocol in 100 police stations in the state at a cost of Rs 3 core.

The CCTV scheme for all 1567 police stations in the state, announced two years ago, is not yet achieved. So far only 250 stations have installed CCTVs.