Indian Railways Has Installed 500 Face Recognition Cameras In Gujarat, Maharashtra

Facial recognition cameras are now being used by Indian Railways to keep track of the millions of people who use its services each day. A new report by Financial Times claims that a network of 500 cameras with facial recognition abilities have been deployed in India.

The facial recognition apparatus was developed by a Russian start-up "NtechLab" and has been operational across 30 railways stations in the Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra, including the country's economic hub Mumbai.

Reuters

Indian government is expanding surveillance

Mumbai's famous local trains are used for daily commute by at least seven million residents.

The move constitutes Indian government's bigger plans to establish a national facial recognition network. The government has issued an open tender for the National Automated Facial Recognition system.

Reuters

The facial recognition system can recognise up to 50 people in a single frame, including people who are wearing masks. This will also help officials keep track of the footfall at any time.

Also read: Dubai's Public Transport Shall Now Have Facial Recognition To Improve Security

Facial recognition has many uses in surveillance. And the government hopes to track down criminals, people of interest through the technology.

In addition, facial recognition can also come in handy while searching for missing people. But all's not well in the world of facial recognition. Firstly, the technology can be grossly misused by authorities to trespass people's right to privacy, now a fundamental right guaranteed by the Indian constitution.

The risks of facial recognition

Many regimes around the world including China use facial recognition to trace dissenters and protestors in hopes of chastising them.

In India, controversy erupted after a facial recognition system called Trinetra was used to arrest over 1,000 farmers who participated in the protests against contentious farm laws.

Reuters

Also read: Singapore Is The First Nation Using Facial Recognition For Paying Taxes

In addition, facial recognition data, in the absence of robust security mechanisms in place may be used by bad actors to gain access to a larger database of people.

Do you think facial recognition is the end of privacy in countries where government undertake heavy surveillance activities? Or do you think the tech can help reduce crime and make tracing perpetrators easier? Let us know in the comments and keep visiting Indiatimes.com for your daily dose of tech news.