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Security forces have their informers — men and women whose confidential information often helps nab criminals. Now, a tool — called the Informer Tool — is being used for the same purpose. The digital tool bypasses bureaucratic processes and, since it provides speedy information about a suspect's background, has been popular among police departments across the country. The police say the tool has helped solve recent criminal cases by providing details about suspects.

The app, developed by Anurag Roy, a final-year engineering student and a cybersecurity specialist in Kolkata, has been in use since November 2025."My goal was to create an indigenous tool that could assist cybercrime investigations and reduce dependence on expensive foreign software," Roy says.

During a recent cybercrime investigation, the Kolkata police repeatedly tried to locate a suspect but couldn't find him at the address they had been provided with. The suspect, it transpired, had procured an Aadhaar card and other documents by listing a false address. The Informer Tool came to the police's aid. It scanned the addresses provided in the documents and flagged an address on a PAN card that differed from the one on his Aadhaar card. The investigators tracked him at the new location and managed to book the suspect."The tool gave us a breakthrough by revealing the suspect's actual address, which ultimately led to the success of the investigation," says Souvik Ghosh, a Sub-Inspector with the cybercrime department in Baruipur, West Bengal.

The platform collects information from leaked and breached data and organises it into a searchable dataset, allowing investigators to access relevant information quickly. It uses OSINT, or Open-Source Intelligence, a tool for collecting and analysing publicly available data. The information is gathered from sources such as websites, social media platforms, public records and other open datasets. The platform can access a wide range of investigative tools, including mobile number look-ups that reveal information about a telephone number, Aadhaar-linked family look-ups, PAN look-ups, Telegram ID look-ups, and more.

Using this tool, users can also access the Proton Mail PGP and Internet Protocol (IP) look-up systems, which can reveal publicly available information about a Proton Mail account and provide clues about the location and network associated with an internet address. Although it does not give the investigators access to private emails or communications, it can help them develop leads. The tool can also identify a suspect's family members and relatives through its family look-up feature."We need such tools to identify the accused person correctly, and it is only to be used for law enforcement, without violating any public privacy," says Mahendra Shantilal Bhamare from the Mumbai police cybercrime department.

According to Roy, around 60 police units across India have subscribed to the platform."We use the tool on a daily basis for several cybercrime cases as it eases the process of retrieving important information," says an official from the headquarters of the West Bengal cybercrime cell, Kolkata.

The tool can also help track suspicious activities before a crime is committed."By linking usernames to mobile numbers and other records, investigators could potentially develop intelligence on individuals involved in criminal activity," Roy says.

Other tools with similar capabilities are mostly foreign-made and expensive. Roy says his device is pocket-friendly with a minimum monthly subscription charge. He is now developing a social media surveillance module, which he says the police have been asking for. The proposed system would analyse behavioural patterns across social media platforms to identify"suspicious" activity. Roy predicts that as cybercrime and cyber-enabled threats grow, intelligence tools will increasingly help investigators track and crack down on criminal activity. This was one of the reasons he was expanding the platform's social media intelligence capabilities, Roy adds.

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