CHENNAI: Wary of stepping into a police station to lodge a complaint? Don’t bother. All you may now have to do is type in the text in your smartphone. The Tamil Nadu police, for the first time, have developed an Android mobile app that will enable lodging of a police complaint in any of the police stations across the state.
“We made the app available on our website (tnpolice.gov.in) since July 27. Soon, we will make it available in the Google play store,” said a senior police officer of the State Crime Records Bureau, which was instrumental in launching the app.
Since its launch, the police have received 42 complaints through the mobile app. Currently, the app has to be downloaded as an APK file from the website, which requires the user to approve a security exception in the phone to install the app since it would have been downloaded from outside the Google play store. “The app for iOS is under development,” said another officer.
The app was developed by the National Information Centre.
Police officers believe the app will put an end to much of the troubles people face in identifying the correct police jurisdiction where they have to lodge the complaint. “Once the complaint is registered, it is directed to the moderator appointed in each district and they, in turn, will direct it to the police station concerned,” the officer added.
The app asks for details that are typically entered in an FIR, like the day, time and place of occurrence of the crime and a brief descriptions of the incident. In addition, the app also allows the user to upload a photo, if possible. The app has permission to ascertain your location when trying to click a photo.
Elaborating on the security aspect, an officer privy to the project said once the app is downloaded, the IMEI number of the phone is saved in the server to enable it to cross-check the identity of the complainants and prevent lodging of fake complaints.
Besides lodging complaints, the app also allows the public to check the status of a complaint or FIR and also verify if a particular vehicle (using its registration number) is a stolen vehicle or not.