India’s Supreme Court has agreed to hear a petition challenging Delhi Police use of facial recognition and other surveillance tools to monitor people attending public protests.
A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant directed that the case be listed with related petitions arising from demonstrations over the alleged leak of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test. Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana also sit on the bench.
The petition was filed by parliamentarian A. Rahim after a July demonstration at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. His counsel, Menaka Guruswamy, told the court that police used facial mapping tools, including camera-equipped spectacles and a vehicle, and shared collected data with two private companies.
Those assertions form part of the legal challenge and have not yet been adjudicated. Delhi Police told the court that nearly 2,873 people associated with murder, rape and child-abuse cases visited the protest, presenting the surveillance as a public-safety measure.
Rahim argues that police standing orders and India’s Criminal Procedure Identification Act of 2022 do not authorize biometric monitoring of people participating in a lawful assembly. The petition also invokes the Supreme Court’s Puttaswamy privacy ruling and its requirements that intrusions have a legal basis, serve a legitimate purpose and be proportionate.
Police facial recognition has faced earlier privacy challenges in Indian courts. At the same time, Delhi Police has continued adopting new form factors, including facial recognition smart glasses for Republic Day security.
The current case focuses specifically on protest surveillance and the handling of biometric data gathered from people in a crowd. That gives the court an opportunity to examine both the authority to deploy the technology and the safeguards that apply when police use it at a political assembly.
The Supreme Court had previously ordered authorities to preserve the material collected in connection with the protest and to refrain from making it public for the time being. The new hearing will place the wider legality of the police practices before the bench alongside the related protest cases.
The dispute brings the operational use of facial recognition into the constitutional framework established by India’s right-to-privacy judgment. The bench will consider the competing claims of public safety, lawful police powers and the privacy and assembly rights of demonstrators.
Sources: The Indian Express
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
