-Galla S Kiran Kumar,Bureau Chief Telagana (Andhra Pradesh)
There is a name in the voter list, but there is no one with that name in that town. In the elections, someone else casts a vote in their name. Preventing such incidents is becoming a big challenge for the Election Commission.
An experiment in local elections in Bihar, created by the Chennai Ankura organization
Today, Chennai: There is a name in the voter list, but there is no one with that name in the town. In the elections, someone else casts a vote in their name. Preventing such incidents is becoming a big challenge for the Election Commission. Recently, the State Election Commission of Bihar’s policy to control fraudulent votes has caught everyone’s attention. The Bihar State Election Commission has come up with an innovative app with the help of a Chennai-based startup called ‘Facetagger’. In the local elections held in the months of May and June, it prevented fraudulent voting.
Recognition in 3 seconds
Especially for elections, Facetagger company has created an app called ‘Swadesh’. The mobile on which this app is installed is connected to the device which contains the list of voters and other data. When the voter enters the polling booth, their face is taken with a mobile phone. The app will tell you within three seconds whether the data of the person in it is in the data it has. This software was used in 650 polling centers in panchayat elections and 1700 polling centers in municipal elections. This software is designed to provide information such as whether the identity of the voter is correct, whether the person in the voter list is the same as the person who came to vote, whether he has a criminal history of casting fraudulent votes in the past. With the help of this app, about 10,000 stolen votes were prevented from being cast in the local elections, according to Facetagger CEO Vijay Gnanadesikan.
Advanced technology
The photo in the voter’s list, the current person’s likeness is very different. Some keep photos from 5 or 10 years ago. Vijay Gnanadesikan said that technology has been incorporated into the app to predict how the person in the photo will change in the future. He said that the Election Commission has shown interest in this experiment because it is working with such accuracy. He said that there is a possibility of using this technology in more elections in the future.
Experiment in more places
Chennai-based Vijay Gnanadesikan and Ilango Meenakshisundaram founded Facetagger in 2018. Vijay said that they are already working with the intelligence agencies of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry to identify the criminals. The records of missing children have been digitized and many children have been handed over to their parents. It has been revealed that their software is being used in 7 airports in India along with Kuala Lumpur airport.
