Telangana: Plea against use of facial recognition technology

Hyderabad: The Division Bench headed by Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili on Monday issued notices to Principal Secretary, Municipal Administration & Urban Affairs and the Hyderabad city police commissioner directing them to respond to the notices on implementation of facial recognition technology in Telangana State within six months.

Manoj Reddy, counsel for the petitioner SQ Masood, a social activist, informed the court that the Telangana government was implementing the facial recognition technology in sheer violation of the Supreme Court judgment and without a statutory basis.

The personal data pertaining to the citizens was gathered by the police and was stored, shared and used by the Police department without the consent of the individual, which amounts to invading into the privacy of the citizen, averred the petitioner.

The petitioner said that he could not succeed in his endeavor in eliciting information under the RTI Act from the State government and the Hyderabad city police as to the law based on which the technology was being implemented in the State.

The petitioner's counsel contended that the Telangana police installed 5,80,000 CCTV cameras across the State in various public places with 50% of these cameras operating in the three commissionerates viz., Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Rachakonda and such personal data captured in the CCTV cameras was being compared with the data available in CCTNS.

Moreover, such data was also made available to the police officers working at ground level linking it with a mobile phone based app, "TSCP", without any sanctity of law, the counsel contended.

After hearing the contentions, the Court adjourned the matter to June 6l.