30/12/2019 - S & T

KEY POINTS

Rationale for use of technology

·        The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) tendered out for technical help to build a database for the police match “persons of interest” with pictures, including pictures from sources like newspapers, social media and TV grabs, etc.

·        The system should allow the police to carry out “fast and accurate face recognition” in a “live environment”, according to the tender. The NCRB says this would help to identify missing persons.

·        The face-recognition database would not, according to the NCRB, be integrated with Aadhaar, which includes photographs and other biometric data.

·        In addition to that database, CCTVs are up and running in both public spaces and closed environments. It’s likely that your image is being captured multiple times on a normal day on multiple CCTV cameras, with the data stored and processed by multiple organisations. The police already uses CCTV images to levy traffic fines.

Democratic overeach

·        It involves collection and processing of private personal data without consent.

·        However, India’s proposed Personal Data Protection Bill, which has not yet been passed in Parliament, does not contain specific protections against this. It proposes to give all government agencies and organisations an open licence to collect and process data, without consent.

·        Digital photographs of people are among the easiest things to collect without consent, or knowledge.

·        Face recognition technology and its use in mass surveillance by sundry governments is deeply contentious. It has been banned in several jurisdictions.

·        It also has technical flaws — for example, false positives lead to innocents being harassed. Courts and judges may not be sufficiently techno-savvy to understand the limitations, or the scope for framing and digital forgery if this is used for police work. 

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