BlockFIR: Blockchain based First Information Report System

Abstract

India is experiencing a sharp rise in criminal activity. This is a serious problem, as many of these crimes go unreported. Although there is an online platform for the police to store First Information Reports (FIR) and Non-Cognizable Reports (NCR), most FIRs are still written by hand. This is inefficient and can lead to errors. Additionally, the complainant must typically be at the police station to report a cognizable offense. This can be inconvenient and time-consuming, especially for victims who live in rural areas. In 2009, the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) were launched as an efficient e-governance system. This system has helped to improve the reporting of crimes, but it is still a centralized system. This means that it is vulnerable to cyberattacks and can be easily shut down by a single point of failure. Therefore, a fully decentralized system is required to ensure no single point of failure and that complaints are handled safely and securely to prevent unauthorized access. This paper proposes a blockchain-based solution called BlockFIR to manage complaints against cognizable and non-cognizable offenses. Using this system, complaints can be registered by users. The police stations will be able to see complaints registered in their jurisdiction, register FIRs/NCRs accordingly, and take action on them. Through a prototype implementation using Go-Ethereum (Geth), smart contracts, and Django web server, we demonstrate the practical use of BlockFIR. We show that our system can be easily used by users, police personnel, and Higher Authorities to improve the current systems in India. © 2023 IEEE.