Facial Recognition System Does Not Trace Public Movement Through CCTVs, No Mass Surveillance: Hyderabad Police Tells High Court

The tool is primarily used for identifying suspected terrorist, habitual offenders, dreaded criminals, missing persons, unidentified dead bodies, etc. It is not linked to CCTV cameras installed in public places and is not used for real-time profiling/ mass surveillance, he said.

The officer was responding to a writ petition moved by a 37 years old resident of Hyderabad, apprehending misuse of his photograph, allegedly clicked by Police personnel during Covid-19 lockdown.

SQ Masood, the Petitioner, had sought information in this regard under the RTI Act and later approached the High Court alleging privacy infringement. The plea alleged that the FRS is linked with CCTV cameras installed in public places and is used for near permanent surveillance on public at large.

Denying all allegations, the Commissioner in his affidavit submitted,

“FRS is a standalone tool to aid Investigation Officers in prevention of crime and identification of criminals/suspects, by comparing face of a person, moving under Suspicious circumstances, or suspected of committing having committed an offence, with a database of arrested offender, convicted criminals, wanted persons, missing persons & children, etc., stored in the central database of CCTNS maintained by Government of India.”

The Commissioner admitted that the access of this offender database is given to all State Polices. However, he added that it comes with inbuilt safeguards.

The affidavit discloses that FRS has an automatic inbuilt mechanism to record details of every individual who logs in the CCTNS database as well as the activities undertaken by him after logging in.

“FRS does not infringe on the right to privacy of people at large…There is no mass surveillance… The FRS tool is not linked to the CCTV network in the state, as alleged in the petition,” the affidavit said.

It adds that since FRS has no relation to any public activity and it does not cause any unwanted invasion of privacy, the information is exempted Section 8(1)(g), (j) of the RTI Act.

The Police further denied collecting any personal data of the petitioner. It added that all the activities under the FRS are guided by Prisoners Act, 1920 and Criminal Procedure Identification Act, 2022. The tool is crucial to prevent commission of cognizable offences under Section 149 CrPC. Thus, it is wrong to say that FRS is illegal or unknown to law, the affidavit said.

“The allegation of the petitioner that FRS was introduced for identification of people on mass scale in real-time is entirely a figment of imagination, devoid of any truth and hereby denied. FRS is used only for targeted identification of specific persons of interest, required for the purpose of crime prevention,” it states.

Case Title: SQ Masood v. State of Telangana