GUWAHATI: The Election Commission of India has launched an app, cVIGIL which is supposed to fast-track the complaint reception and redressal system for citizens.
It is an innovative mobile application for the citizens of the country to report Model Code of Conduct and Expenditure violations during the elections. ‘cVIGIL’ stands for Vigilant Citizen and it emphasizes the proactive and responsible role citizens can play in the conduct of free and fair elections.
The app is a user-friendly and easy to operate android application that can be used for reporting violations from the date of notifications for bye-election/ assembly/parliamentary elections.
The app is unique in the sense that it allows only live photo/video with auto location capture from within the app to ensure digital evidence for flying squads to act upon in a time-bound manner.
The app can be installed and used on any Android smartphone equipped with a camera, good internet connection and GPS access. When using this app, citizens will be able to immediately report on incidents of political misconduct within minutes of witnessing them.
The app connects citizens with the District Control Room, Returning Officer and Field Unit (Flying Squads)/ Static Surveillance Teams and thus creating a rapid and accurate reporting, action and monitoring system.
To report an incident, one just has to click a picture or record a 2-minute video of the activity violating MCC and describe it shortly before registering the complaint. GIS information captured with the complaint automatically flags it to the concerned District Control Room, permitting flying squads to be routed to the spot within few minutes.
The user also has the option of registering complaints anonymously through cVIGIL App. In that case, the mobile number and other profile details are not sent to the system.
The cVIGIL app also has inbuilt features to prevent its misuse. The app will be usable only within geographical boundary of states where elections are being held, the user will get 5 minutes to report an incidence after having clicked a picture or video. One of the main features is that the app will not allow uploading of pre-recorded images/videos and will also not allow users to save said photos and videos in the phone gallery directly.
The app will also force time delay of 5 minutes between successive complaints by the same person and to repetitive complaints from the same spot.