India’s 1st facial tech tracker to be launched on November 27

NEW DELHI: Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) has announced the launch of India’s first tracker for facial systems on Friday, November 27. The nation’s first facial recognition technology tracker, Project Panoptic, maps the development and distribution of facial recognition technology projects all over India. The Foundation has asked the Government of India to pass a data protection law, along with a specific law for facial recognition technology.

National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), with an estimated budget of Rs 308 crore, has started making plans to set up an Automated Facial Recognition System (AFRS). It will create a national database of photographs. The project intends to quickly identify criminals by gathering existing data from different databases like passport database, Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems and other databases available with police or different departments.

According to Data privacy, using this technology without legal protection would lead to bigotry and prohibition. IFF said that a strong data protection act should be brought in to hold AFRS responsible for the data collection, storage and usage of data, which also includes sharing of data across the agencies and third parties.