Violation of Right to Privacy: Karti Chidambaram on 'Orwellian' usage of facial recognition by Chennai police

"The police department assured citizens that there is 'nothing to worry'. But how can citizens not be concerned? Particularly, in the absence of a data protection law, or regulation aimed specifically at FRT," the Lok Sabha MP from Sivaganga constituency said.

The Indian government has currently floated the draft of the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill (DPDP) for consultation.

"In the absence of legal provisions and safeguards that clearly lay down the FRT regime, the use of such systems is illegal. Their use is in clear violation of the fundamental right to privacy upheld by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Justice K. S. Puttaswamy vs Union of India (2017)," Chidambaram added.

"Further, it is unclear whether the use of FRT by the Greater Chennai Police fulfils the four-fold test of legality, legitimate aim, proportionality, and procedural safeguards as laid down in the judgement," he added.

Attributing to studies conducted by experts, Chidambaram said that FRT is inaccurate and that it poses a risk to citizens of being wrongly identified as criminals.

"Further, owing to inherent biases prevalent in policing there may be disproportionate targeting of certain groups of people. The impact of FRT may also depend on distribution and placement of police stations and CCTV cameras. Areas with more CCTVs are likely to be over-policed and over-surveilled, which will subsequently mean that FRT will have an uneven impact, posing a serious challenge to the fundamental right to equality," he further said.

There has been an increase in the usage of facial recognition technology by the Indian government since the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Critics of the technology and digital rights groups have time and again pointed out that the country still lacks a data protection law to protect against the misuse of sensitive data such as biometrics.