The CMS, says the paper, is designed to surveil email, Skype and internet instant messaging/chat facilities in real time, thanks to the creation of 30 cybersurveillance centres across the country, including in Delhi and state capitals.
The surveillance system will reportedly enhance the ability of the security agencies to monitor more than 1,500 Gbps of data throughput through internet gateways across India, and will extend surveillance to Skype and other IM-style services.
Interestingly, the paper asserts that only 25 to 30% of IP traffic is currently being monitored by the Indian agencies.
So how does the system function?
Here's where it gets interesting, Infosecurity notes, as the CMS will allow voice matching during a mobile phone call, referencing digital samples in the national database and zero in on the phone's location.
This appears to mean that the intelligence services can work out who is calling on their mobile phone and where they are calling from, and, says the paper, to an accuracy of 50 metres (down from 500 metres at present).
The paper quotes security officials as expressing doubts about the efficacy of the voice matching service: "It has about 60–70% success in countries which use the technique," a senior official told the paper.
The CMS is the result of a joint project between India’s Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) and the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO).
The Economic Times notes that, with the CMS, "a more stringent monitoring system is being put in place to avoid leak of intercepts as happened with the Niira Radia tapes."
"The new system will have more stringent checks and balances to avoid leak of content of intercepts," a senior official associated with the project told the paper.
Under the new surveillance system, Indian security agencies will submit the name of the person/s they want to track to the home secretary.
"Using his discretion, the home secretary will approve the proposal. The home secretary's order will be sent to DoT which will intercept the target and give its content to security agencies", says the paper.
"This will be reviewed by the home secretary after three months. A committee headed by the cabinet secretary will review orders of the home secretary", it adds.