Government's Central Monitoring System to be operational soon

NEW DELHI, INDIA: To remove existing loopholes in the in the legal phone interception by the official agencies, the Central Monitoring System (CMS) of the Government is likely to start functioning at a small scale by April this year.

Through the CMS, phone calls and Internet data in the country is monitored.

By August 2013, the technical processes involved for the mechanism is likely to be announced but the pilot programme will begin next month.

The CMS that will be connected with Telephone Call Interception System (TCIS) setup costs about Rs. 4 billion. The TCIS setup will help monitor voice calls, SMS and MMS, GPRS, Fax Communications on landlines, CDMA, GSM and 3G networks, and video calls.

The hub of the mechanism will be set up in New Delhi and it will also have four hi-tech regional hubs. It will have direct electronic provisioning of target telephone numbers by government agencies.

Agencies like Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), National Investigation Agency (NIA), Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), Narcotics Control Bureau, and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) will have access to this system.