Every time you flash your credit card, pick up the phone, take a flight or access the Internet, somebody will be watching you.
India is ramping up its intelligence infrastructure and networking databases in the public and private sectors.
Once the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) is established by May 2011, it will provide security agencies real-time access into 21 categories of databases -- including bank account details, credit card transactions, driving licences as well as visa and immigration records.
This means that rather than writing to more than 50 entities -- government bodies such as the RBI and the Bureau of Immigration, and private firms like phone, cheap health insurance and airline companies -- all that a security agency has to do to get to know all about you is to feed your name into the system.
"Once you feed in a person's name, you'll get all the details about him, across all the databases," a government official said. Right from the colour of your car, outstanding traffic fines to be paid and the last time you paid by card for a late-night dinner with a friend.
"There really will not be any secrets from the State," a security official said. "It's the same in the United States."
The information grid will also have the ability to trawl through the consolidated database to sniff for suspicious trends and flag them for further investigations.
Intelligence officials insist they need this information to tackle the new sophisticated face of terrorism.
"Headley wouldn't have had a free run for three years if this kind of a system had been in place," an intelligence official said, referring to the Pakistanorigin David Coleman Headley who was arrested by US federal agents for conspiring to carry out terror attacks in India and Denmark.
India is ramping up its intelligence infrastructure and networking databases in the public and private sectors.
Once the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) is established by May 2011, it will provide security agencies real-time access into 21 categories of databases -- including bank account details, credit card transactions, driving licences as well as visa and immigration records.
This means that rather than writing to more than 50 entities -- government bodies such as the RBI and the Bureau of Immigration, and private firms like phone, cheap health insurance and airline companies -- all that a security agency has to do to get to know all about you is to feed your name into the system.
"Once you feed in a person's name, you'll get all the details about him, across all the databases," a government official said. Right from the colour of your car, outstanding traffic fines to be paid and the last time you paid by card for a late-night dinner with a friend.
"There really will not be any secrets from the State," a security official said. "It's the same in the United States."
The information grid will also have the ability to trawl through the consolidated database to sniff for suspicious trends and flag them for further investigations.
Intelligence officials insist they need this information to tackle the new sophisticated face of terrorism.
"Headley wouldn't have had a free run for three years if this kind of a system had been in place," an intelligence official said, referring to the Pakistanorigin David Coleman Headley who was arrested by US federal agents for conspiring to carry out terror attacks in India and Denmark.
