India Plans To Adopt Facial Recognition System To Assist Its Police Force

Recent reports suggest that India could be the next country after China to deploy mass surveillance to assist law enforcement. The newest facial recognition system that the Indian government plans to set up is said to be one off the world’s largest systems.

In October, bids will be opened by the government with companies joining to bring forward their proposals for setting up a centralized surveillance network. This facial recognition system will connect all the databases which have every piece of info from passports to fingerprints.

With people’s concern over how the system could be abused, the government justifies the move by saying that the police force is currently understaffed. The ratio of policeman per citizens is 1 per 724, which is significantly below the global standards due to the country’s overpopulation. The government believes that with this facial recognition system, the police will receive assistance in identifying missing people and criminals without much hassle or delay.

Unidentified companies have filed RTI requests to seek clarity on the action plan for the deployment of the system. Among all the questions, two most important ones were whether the facial system could identify those who has had plastic surgeries and whether this new system should be merged with existing state databases.

As Nilab Koshore, Indo-Tibetan Border Police’s deputy inspector general said, a system which can help with criminal identification is invaluable and facial recognition is sure is a powerful tool. However, the government also needs to take into account human intentions. It is no doubt that technology could be useful but it could be misused if the intentions of the people who use it are wrong.

Since there are requirements for participating companies to meet the standards of the U.S. National Institute of Science and Technology, some Indian companies won’t have the chance to take part in the bidding.