Gurgaon: Gurgaon-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) start-up Staqu is utilising AI in finding missing Indians. According to records of the National Crime Records Bureau, over 60,000 children alone go missing every year in India. Additionally, 50% of children who went missing till 2016 remained untraced. Staqu has come up with a mobile app for the police force that runs on an AI-enabled software to digitise the records of the missing people and find them through facial recognition, geo-fencing and hot-spot analysis.
Through AI-powered facial recognition, Staqu has been enabling the search for missing people, with the solution currently live with three state-level police departments – Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh. At present, the app carries a database of more than 12,000 people who have gone missing. After the elections, Staqu plans to make the solution live in Punjab, further following it up with more integrations with other state-level police departments.
In addition to digitising the records of missing people, Staqu conducts hot-spot and geo-fencing analysis to enable the search. Under hot-spot analysis, Staqu’s AI solution studies historical records of missing people — the spots that served as hideouts for child traffickers or kidnappers in the past. This is further coupled with geo-fencing analysis; once a child or a person is reported missing, Staqu’s AI solution starts mulling over the data from nearby areas such as railway stations and bus stops — locations within the six-hour radius or more, depending on the time since the person was reported missing. The quick and real-time analysis by Staqu generates leads for the police forces.
“Our AI-powered app digitises missing people records and helps the task forces retrieve this information in real-time through facial recognition. Via hot-spot and geo-fencing analysis, the app helps police forces by generating leads for dedicated and focused patrolling. We plan to bring the solution to various state-level police forces and it will help task forces in their search for the missing Indians," according to Atul Rai, CEO and co-founder of Staqu.
In the next phase of the project, Staqu intends to connect its AI-based missing people solution with CCTV footage and actively monitor the happenings to search for missing Indians in real-time. The criminal search solutions by Staqu have already helped police forces solve over 1,100 high-profile and high-risk cases, carrying a database of over 1 million criminals. The start-up has also brought new advancements such as Smart Glasses, GAIT technology and GANG Analysis in criminal identification and missing people’s search.
