The Indian Police Service, simply known as Indian Police or IPS, is one of the three All India Services of the Government of India. In 1948, a year after India gained independence from Britain, the Imperial Police (IP) was replaced by the Indian Police Service. The IPS is not a law enforcement agency; rather it is a civil service in which officers are selected on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations, and to which all police officers are professionally identified. Police officers are employed by the police departments of respective states of India.

The Central government is implementing an ambitious scheme called "Crime & Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS)". The goals of the system are to facilitate collection, compilation, storage, retrieval, analysis, transfer and sharing of data and information at the police station and between the police station and the State Headquarters and the Central Police Organizations.