Delhi Police Use Facial Recognition Technology To Identify Miscreants During Protests

In a first, Delhi police are using facial recognition technology to nab miscreants during the protests. The Indian government had issued notifications to various police departments to enhance their Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS). For the past week, New Delhi and other parts of India have been witnessing protests against Citizen Amendment Act (CAA). Students from Jamia Milia University protested against the government for passing CAA. During the protest, miscreants allegedly torched public transport buses and the entire protest went violent. Delhi police allegedly entered Jamia Milia University and assaulted students and staff members.

Various police departments across India have developed a database of criminals involved in several crimes. Facial recognition software allows the police departments to identify those miscreants through the database. Sources revealed that police officers are also collecting mass data of individuals participating during such violent protests. However, netizens were against the use of such technology as it violates their personal space. In one such incident, Hyderabad police were seen stopping people on the streets to click pictures of traffic offenders to enhance their database. When local residents tried to object to such activity, they were humiliated and sent away.

Technologists from all quarters are supporting the use of facial recognition in the country. They claim that in the age of technology, a criminal can easily be tracked through their facial components like eyebrows, face lines, eyes. Police officers have not understood the entire technology yet and they are being trained by tech experts. Hyderabad police recently caught a drunk suspect who had created ruckus at Metro station. He was caught using facial recognition technology in just 24 hours.

Several protests have been taken place in India starting from Bhima Koregaon violence, protests against scrapping of Article 370 and currently against the implementation of CAA. Police officers are aiming to crack down on sexual offenders and miscreants involved in heinous crimes. Well, questions are left as a basic project of AADHAR was compromised which consisted of private information of individuals. The future of facial recognition and collection of data currently hangs on the darker side of police departments.