why in news? The cVigil app has recorded 3,147 complaints in Karnataka on model code of conduct violations, of which 2,643 complaints have been found to be genuine.

What is cVIGIL?

• cVIGIL is an innovative mobile application for citizens to report Model Code of Conduct(MCC) and Expenditure violations during the elections.
• ‘cVIGIL’ stands for Vigilant Citizen and emphasizes the proactive and responsible role citizens can play in the conduct of free and fair elections.
• cVIGIL, a user-friendly and easy to operate the android application, can be used for reporting violations from the date of notifications for bye-election/ assembly/ parliamentary elections.
• The uniqueness of the app is that it only allows 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 could be installed and used on any Android (Jellybean and above) smartphone equipped with a camera, good internet connection, and GPS access.
• It connects vigilant citizens with District Control Room, Returning Officer, and Field Unit (Flying Squads) / Static Surveillance Teams, thereby, creating a rapid and accurate reporting, action and monitoring system.
• The cVIGIL application must be used for lodging MCC violation related cases only.

The app has inbuilt features to prevent its misuse. Some of the important features are listed below:

• cVIGIL application will be usable only within geographical boundary of States where elections are being held.
• The cVIGIL user will get 5 minutes to report an incidence after having clicked a picture or a video. The app will not allow uploading of the pre-recorded images/ videos, neither would it allow users to save photos/videos clicked from this app into the phone gallery directly.
• To prevent misuse of the system and to avoid repetitive complaints from the same spot, the system forces time delay of 5 minutes between successive complaints by the same person.
• District Controller has the option of dropping duplicate, frivolous and unrelated cases even before the cases are assigned to the field unit.

Benefits of the Application

• cVIGIL is a convenient and user friendly app allowing citizens to send pictorial evidence of the model code of conduct violations in their vicinity.
• Each reported incident is tracked and scrutinised from the beginning to the end point, thus bringing accountability into the system.
• The immediate location verification feature of the cVIGIL will act as a strong deterrence for miscreants and wrong-doers as they can be easily tracked.
• A combination of all these factors will encourage citizens to keep vigil over unhealthy electoral practices and bring them to the notice of the Election Commission. This in turn will help the commission reach its objective of conducting free and fair elections.