The Kerala Police’s pre-conference programmes ahead of c0c0n 2026 began in Kochi on Tuesday, bringing together senior police officers, technology experts, policymakers, academics, teachers and students for initiatives focused on child safety, artificial intelligence in investigations and responsible digital use.
The programmes are being held ahead of c0c0n 2026, described as one of Asia’s largest global cybersecurity gatherings organised by Kerala Police. The schedule includes Project Lighthouse India 2026, HAC’KP 2026 and Kid Glove, each addressing a different part of the digital safety and law-enforcement ecosystem.
Project Lighthouse India 2026, scheduled across Tuesday and Wednesday, is a national leadership workshop on preventing technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse. It will bring together senior IPS officers for discussions on threat assessment, offender profiling and the use of digital investigation tools, including Photo DNA, deepfake forensic systems, cryptocurrency tracing and open-source intelligence.
The workshop will also examine a proposed National Victim Identification Database. According to the report, Kerala Police plans to use artificial intelligence to support coordination between states and link investigations with Interpol’s International Child Sexual Exploitation database. Participants are also expected to discuss legal protocols for presenting AI-generated child sexual abuse material as evidence, as well as welfare measures for investigators who examine traumatic digital material.
The scale of the challenge is reflected in the work of Kerala Police’s Counter Child Sexual Exploitation Centre. The centre has registered 2,305 cases under Operation P-Hunt, arrested 384 accused persons and seized 4,484 digital devices, according to the report. These figures underline the growing role of digital evidence in investigations and the operational burden placed on police teams handling online exploitation cases.
HAC’KP 2026, the seventh edition of Kerala Police Cyberdome’s national hackathon, will be conducted as a residential boot camp from Tuesday to Thursday at Crowne Plaza in Kochi. Its theme is “Agentic AI for Investigations: From Evidence to Intelligence”. The programme aims to develop software that can help investigators process large volumes of digital evidence, connect otherwise separate information and generate actionable intelligence under human supervision.
The third initiative, Kid Glove, is focused on children and parents. Instead of relying on conventional awareness lectures, the child-centric digital safety programme uses activity-based sessions to teach children how to protect themselves online. It has already conducted more than 1,000 classes in schools across Kerala.
A Kid Glove Model United Nations programme will be held on Wednesday at ToC H Public School in Kadavanthra, with 175 selected student representatives from schools across the state. The Kid Glove Summit 2026 will follow on Thursday at Le Méridien hotel in Kochi, where more than 1,500 delegates, including 600 students, are expected to participate.
