Police in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh are operating a live forensic evidence system that records activity on the Cardano blockchain. Officers using the system do not manage crypto wallets, sign transactions or hold tokens.
The aim is to make evidence handling tamper-evident.
How the system works
The platform, called the Forensic Management System (FMS), was developed by TrivolveTech in partnership with Quixy.
The deployment was announced around October 26, 2026. It received wider media coverage on November 9-10, 2026.
Each evidence container has a QR code. When someone scans a container or a lab produces a result, the system generates a SHA-256 hash, a fixed-length digital fingerprint of the underlying data.
The fingerprint is then anchored to the Cardano blockchain. If the record is later altered, its fingerprint will no longer match the one stored onchain.
The blockchain does not store the evidence itself. It stores proof of what the evidence record looked like at a particular moment.
Each person handling evidence receives a unique identifier. This addresses chain-of-custody risk, the vulnerability that arises as evidence passes among officers, storage rooms and labs, when it may be unclear who had it and when.
Officers continue their usual workflows, scanning containers and logging results, while blockchain activity takes place in the background.
The numbers so far
The FMS has recorded more than 156,000 transactions on the Cardano mainnet, an average of approximately 11,000 transactions per month.
The project has a history. TrivolveTech previously received 550,000 $ADA through Catalyst Fund 12, a community-driven grant program within the Cardano ecosystem.
The developer is now seeking a much larger share of the treasury. It has proposed a follow-up project, the Police Force Management System (PFMS), and is requesting 9.6 million $ADA from the Cardano treasury to build it.
The request is roughly 17 times the earlier Catalyst grant. As of late October 2026, the proposal was up for a community vote.
TrivolveTech is targeting an estimated 1.53 million transactions in the PFMS’s first year, nearly ten times the FMS’s total to date. On a monthly basis, that implies an average of more than 127,000 transactions, compared with the current pace of about 11,000.
Why this matters beyond Cardano
Chain of custody has long been a challenge in criminal justice. Evidence is only as credible as the paper trail documenting it, and a gap in that trail can weaken an entire case.
Traditional systems depend on signatures, logbooks and centralized databases. A public blockchain provides a record that is outside the control of any single department.
The Cardano Foundation plans to publish a detailed case study of the initiative.
What this means
The treasury vote is the near-term development to watch. Cardano’s on-chain governance lets the community decide how treasury funds are spent, and a 9.6 million $ADA request is a significant test of how voters weigh proven deployments against new proposals.
There are caveats to consider. Transaction counts measure activity, not impact, and the case for the system ultimately depends on whether it improves the way evidence holds up in investigations and courtrooms.
For other governments considering similar tools, the wallet-free design may be the most transferable lesson. Asking police officers to manage private keys would be difficult. Hiding the blockchain behind a QR scanner removes that obstacle.
