Explainer: Louvre heist & power of data

WHEN thieves broke into the Louvre museum in Paris on October 19 and effected a $102 million robbery in seven minutes, the French authorities responded with all the resources at their disposal. The breakthrough came courtesy the country’s advanced DNA and fingerprint databases. The police collected biological traces, including touch DNA, from various surfaces at the crime scene, including getaway vehicles and discarded tools. The traces swiftly identified the culprits. It led to the arrest of key suspects, turning the focus on vital forensic work. The iconic jewellery, though, is still missing.

Database versus privacy debate

The Louvre heist investigation signifies the impact of biometric databases and molecular forensic tools in law enforcement. Privacy advocates, however, urge caution on database expansion and use, even as law enforcement agencies claim that these tools are key to battling organised crime and cross-border theft.

In India, while the Aadhaar database contains biometric information, fingerprints and iris scans of nearly every citizen, law enforcement agencies are legally barred from accessing it for investigation purposes.

In the Louvre heist, fingerprints and DNA collected at the scene were instantly compared against France’s central registries, containing the biometric records of 44 lakh individuals, leading to swift identification.

In India, the police want to have access to the huge database in the Aadhaar system, the world’s largest biometric repository, but it is governed by strict privacy and data protection laws. The framework established under the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, explicitly limits the use of such biometric data to identity verification and welfare-linked authentication.

The Punjab example

Like the police force in other states, Punjab Police has a longstanding database of criminal fingerprints. However, the collection and management of DNA records began only in 2019. “We, too, can catch criminals if they were involved in a crime earlier and got included in the database. The same happened in the Louvre heist detection. Our database of fingerprints is extensive, but it pertains only to those with criminal records. For DNA, we are still building the foundation — we have only profiles from recent investigations and convictions,” a senior police officer said.

The database pertains to only known criminals, not first-timers or those who have never been arrested.

Punjab’s forensic units can verify fingerprints and DNA samples only against select suspects, not against the entire pool of stored records. This selective process limits the ability to make rapid breakthroughs in cases where the accused’s identity is unknown. “We check suspects’ prints, but cannot match crime scene evidence with a wider population sample. There is no automated system to cross-check unknown prints or DNA samples with every existing record in one go,” adds the officer.

It is learnt that a proposal to provide forensics units with a software to check suspects’ fingerprints or DNA from the lakhs in the database is pending with the government.

AI system in use

The Punjab Artificial Intelligence System (PAIS) was launched in early 2017 as a mobile and web-based app to help the police quickly identify criminals using facial recognition and a large, constantly updated digital database of criminal records.

Police personnel can take a photo of a suspect and get instant details about any criminal history, making it easier and faster to catch offenders. It can be helpful to match the photos of criminals if some suspect is rounded up or questioned at police barricades. A good quality CCTV photo can also lead to the criminal if his or her photo is already present in the database.

According to Punjab Police chief Gaurav Yadav, “Punjab Police attempts to use the latest scientific and technological methods to detect and prevent crime. This is done within the boundaries of the law. The police is always in the process of updating its capacity to check crime.”