The government plans to change the norms for collecting information on VIP security. Sources said the Centre feels a new pro forma should be drafted, that focuses only on security-related aspects of the protectee instead of the existing format that covers the VIP’s personal life too. The process of drafting a new pro forma will be initiated shortly in consultation with security and intelligence agencies like the SPG, IB and Special Branch. The Centre will then send this to state police forces, so that they can implement this format for VIP protectees in their respective areas. The information-gathering system will also be digitised so that instead of the police, the unit that is handling the VIP’s protection gathers all the relevant information and puts it into the database. This database will be available through an online mechanism to security and intelligence involved in protecting political leaders. A senior security official admitted a lot of information now being collected was “totally irrelevant”. “This incident has indeed served as a wake-up call since the present pro forma is about 30-odd years old and needs to be changed in terms of what information is required from the concerned VIP. There is a view that a lot of information being taken now is totally irrelevant,” a top security official said. Sources said preliminary discussion among various security agencies has already been initiated and a final format on the new information gathering mechanism will be formalised shortly. Senior security officials are also of the view that the police officials involved in the exercise need to be more discreet rather than going to the residence of each VIP personally for conducting the security audit or survey. Thus one of the proposals being considered is that security agencies like the SPG, ITBP, CISF or CRPF or the respective state police providing security cover to a particular VIP should itself do the security audit of the protectee on a regular basis and this information should then be shared with other concerned Central or state agencies. “We will ensure that the information or data base on a VIP protectee can be accessed only by select senior officials through a particular password,” the official said. Source: The Asian Age, Image: https://flickr.com/
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