The Chennai police’s use of biometric technology may violate privacy laws, according to activists.
What’s it about? Privacy advocates have claimed the Chennai Police’s use of biometric facial recognition technology might go against the Supreme Court’s judgment on privacy. Privacy advocates at Project Panoptic said they were worried about the use of facial recognition technology used by the Chennai police.
- It stemmed from an individual’s experience posted on Twitter who was stopped by the police to take his picture but was given no explanation. Officers reportedly took pictures to run through a facial recognition system.
- The Chennai police responded by saying there was nothing to worry about and biometric identification was being used to verify people travelling at night to identify criminals.
Privacy issues: India still doesn’t have a robust privacy or data protection law for biometrics. Even if the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022 is enforced, it could still law the police to use the technology. Per Project Panoptic, 126 facial recognition systems have been installed across various states.