Crime patrolling assistance using passive monitoring: A Proof of Concept of a proactive Wi-Fi Surveillance system

The advent of internet as well as use of Wi-Fi technologies by mobile devices for internet connectivity has made possible a more proactive means of surveillance. Add-on to the normal patrolling, the police departments around the world and in India, can utilize Wi-Fi technology in their surveillance. We propose Wi-Fi surveillance as a general Wi-Fi sniffing system along with assistance mechanisms for alert generation and many other analysis and investigative support. However, to start with, we need to explore whether, is there a need to do Wi-Fi surveillance? What will be the major benefits? Whether, Wi-Fi surveillance can be mapped with beat plans? Whether, they can yield valuable information? And, above all, Is it feasible? In this paper, we have made an extensive case for Wi-Fi surveillance by pointing out its overall benefits. We have made an extensive survey to identify critical tools and techniques for the same. We did a feasibility study by mapping Wi-Fi surveillance over patrolling of both on-the-move and static approaches. By using minimal resources in performing surveillance, it was observed finally by experimentation that, Wi-Fi surveillance will certainly add value to patrols as well as it will be serving lots of assistance in crime management.