HC issues notices to TS, city police chief on use of face recognition technology
HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Monday issued notices to the state government and the Hyderabad police commissioner to respond to a PIL, which complained that the use of face recognition technology (FRT) by the Telangana police on citizens had no legal backing and not approved by any legislature.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili issued notices to the authorities and sought counters from them, while dealing with the PIL filed by S. Q. Masood, a Hyderabad-based social activist who contended that the police in May 2019 stopped him in traffic and took his photos without his consent though he was not facing any previous criminal cases. He questioned the legal sanctity to take photos or using data of CCTVs, which were set up in many areas of Hyderabad city and several other towns of the state to make facial recognition and other data. "The use of this technology is being done secretively, with most citizens unaware that they are under the gaze of a camera equipped with the technology and that is a violation of Article 19 and privacy of individuals,” the petitioner said and also submitted that the police had not given any reply to him, for his RTI queries regarding the validity of the use of FRT.
K. Manoj Reddy, counsel for the petitioner said the police were least concerned about the requests of the petitioner to delete his personal and cliometrics information from the data, kept back by the police.
Quoting the Supreme Court's famous Aadhaar card judgment, the counsel said that it was an utter violation of the privacy of the citizens of India granted by the Constitution. The use of such technology without any authorisation from the law should be declared unconstitutional and illegal, he said.
The petitioner said though the police were saying that they were collecting data for the purpose to track and identify the criminals and suspects in crimes, the storage data would be misused.
