The National Crime Records Bureau said its request for proposal (RFP) for Automated Facial Recognition System is under revision, and has extended the deadline to submit bids to May 22. The bids will now be opened on May 27. This is the seventh time that the deadline for submitting bids has been extended, with the previous deadline being March 27. NCRB has also removed the old 172-page long RFP from its website (but we have uploaded a copy here). We have reached out to NCRB for more details. AFRS is a centralised web application, and is expected to be the foundation for “a national level searchable platform of facial images” which proposed to use data from passports, the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS), and the Interoperable Criminal Justice System, among other things. Concerns prospective bidders had raised about the old RFP In July 2019, when NCRB had held a pre-bid meeting with prospective bidders, questions about the future integration of AFRS with other systems, and how it would deal with cases of plastic surgery were raised. Other concerns raised include: Difficult for small Indian companies to bid: Prospective bidders had also said that requirements to qualify for developing the AFRS — as per the old RFP — could hardly be met by domestic companies, and in turn give an edge to bigger international firms. This included a request to reduce the turnover criteria, since according to the old RFP, bidders/joint venture companies should have an annual turnover of at least…
