Telangana govt to detect bus driver fatigue through facial recognition tech; workers’ union wary

An iRaste-enabled TSRTC bus in Telangana | Source: IIIT Hyderabad

Telangana is planning to introduce facial recognition for detecting fatigue or any distraction of its government bus drivers, a move that has irked the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) Worker Union.

This is the latest deployment of facial recognition in the country, a piece of technology that has long been criticised for being inaccurate and for posing threats to the fundamental rights of privacy and freedom of speech.

The facial recognition system for monitoring TSRTC bus drivers is being introduced as part of Project iRASTE, a project of the Telangana government and IIIT Hyderabad, which aims to increase road safety with the use of AI/ML and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) devices.

As of now, 200 buses are installed with ADAS devices in 3 major corridors – Hyderabad-Vijayawada, Hyderabad- Bengaluru and Hyderabad-Nizamabad – for reducing black spots, designing crash prevention measures by monitoring highways and so on.

However, as per a tender reviewed by Moneycontrol, the aspect of the project is being extended to include facial recognition.

“..CCTV should be installed on the windscreen of any vehicle for providing real-time driving safety & surveillance that tracks driver alertness. The item is intended to deliver driving safety, real-time driving assistance, and driver behaviour monitoring to improve Road Safety. The DMS must generate alerts by monitoring the Driver’s Facial Positions and Eye movement,” the tender said.

The facial recognition technology will detect drivers’ drowsiness and sleepiness, smoking, seatbelts and so on. It will also track the driver’s eye movements, and generate “driver assessment risk scoring”, based on these parameters.

Workers’ union protests

Speaking to Moneycontrol, Raji Reddy of the TSRTC Workers Union said, “TSRTC drivers drive 8-10 hours at night at a stretch without rest. We have been asking the government to give drivers rest after 4 hours of driving at night but that has not been accepted.”

“Moreover, these buses do not have cabins for drivers, and thus drivers can be easily distracted by passengers and so on. The government should first work on installing cabins in these buses, and work on the 4-hour rule for night drivers (before deploying these hi-tech solutions),” Reddy said.

“Although well-intentioned, this facial recognition proposal of the government seems like a scaring tactic for drivers,” he added.

The concerns

Anushka Jain, policy counsel of the Internet Freedom Foundation, points out that the scope of inaccuracy in this particular use case is very high.

“For instance, a driver could just be blinking and the technology may capture it as someone who is sleeping. The technology may even categorise the resting face of a person as tired. Some people may have small eyes. Will the technology categorise them as sleeping? What happens if someone is wearing glasses?” Jain asked.

“These are the issues which may arise due to the deployment of facial recognition. And since this technology will be used to mark their performance, this will affect their livelihood and may cause irreparable harm,” she added.

Hyderabad-based social activist SQ Masood said, “Rather than going for these experiments, the Telangana government should instead concentrate on establishing proper time management of drivers and give them proper
facilities and so on.”

Masood is also a petitioner in a case against Hyderabad Police's use of facial recognition in the city.

IFF’s Jain finds a similarity with the deployment of facial recognition of TSRTC bus drivers with reports of safai karamcharis (sanitary workers) across the country being made to wear tracking devices to enable their surveillance by the authorities.

“This is a clear trend of officials taking the route of opting for hi-tech solutions when workers have clearly stated that these are the things they need to make their job easier,” she added.

This will not be the first time that India will be experimenting with facial recognition tech for detecting a driver’s fatigue, etc.

Moneycontrol had earlier reported how BEML Ltd, a public sector company under the Ministry of Defence, has developed a driver fatigue monitoring system which uses facial recognition.

“Assessing driver fatigue in critical conditions is an indispensable tool, especially in the Armed Forces,” an MoD report had said. In the private sector, bus mobility platform IntrCity is also deploying this technology in their buses.

Global experience

Globally, this technology has also been deployed in Shanghai in 2019, where a bus company installed facial recognition-equipped cameras to detect driver fatigue, according to a report.

In 2018, it was deployed in Dubai, UAE, under a project named “Raqeeb” to detect if bus drivers were using mobile phones or falling asleep, etc.