FRT has arrived at the Indian airports

The facial recognition tech is arriving at Indian airports - what are the issues involved

FRT has arrived at the Indian airports

---

Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment

---

• The story: The government wanted to bring in the Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) much earlier but it is now arriving for passengers - as their boarding pass - at four Indian airports (Varanasi, Pune, Kolkata and Vijayawada). This is when there's a big debate on privacy rights protection in India, and in the absence of any privacy law.
• Facial recognition: FRT is a privacy-invading biometric technology that uses distinctive features of the face to identify and distinguish an individual. It has scientifically evolved in many ways, from looking at 3D contours of a face to recognizing skin patterns. 

1. In the Automated Facial Recognition System (AFRS), the large database (containing photos and videos of peoples’ faces) is used to match and identify the person.
2. Image of an unidentified person, taken from CCTV footage, is compared to the existing database using Artificial Intelligence technology, for pattern-finding and matching.
3. The facial recognition system works primarily by capturing the face & its features through the camera and then using various kinds of software to reconstruct those features. The captured face along with its features is stored into a database, which can be integrated with any kind of software that may be used for security purposes, banking services, etc.

• Authentication: It is used for identification and authentication purposes with a success rate of almost 75%. In India, where there are just 144 constables per 1 lakh citizens, the police claim tha this can act as a force multiplier. It neither requires too much manpower nor regular upgradation, but it become a silent destroyer of citizen privacy (and hence is a "disproportionate measure", as per the Right to Privacy judgment).
• Infrastructural costs: Technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Big Data are costly to implement. The size of stored information is extremely large and requires huge network & data storage facilities, which are currently not available in India. Technical skills needed may be missing too, and the sheer scope for misuse of the data in various ways, is dangerous.
• Violation to Privacy: The biggest criticism of this technology is that it invades and destroys the privacy of crores of citizens, on a regulat basis, in a silent way. Even if a data protection law eventually is created in India, this technology can simply continue being used without citizens even being aware of it. The Chinese state has used this on a huge swathe of its citizens in the Xinjiang province, i.e. on the Uighurs, and US has sanctioned many firms and communist party officials for doing that.
• Reliability: The data collected may be used in the court of law during the course of a criminal trial, the reliability and the admissibility of the data along with standards and procedure followed would be taken into consideration. FRT systems in the absence of data protection laws that would mandate necessary safeguards in the collection and storage of user data is also a point of concern.
• Summary: In this digital age, data is a valuable resource that should not be left unregulated. In this context, the time is ripe for India to have a robust data protection regime. The government would also have to respect the privacy of the citizens while strengthening the right to information. Both are in serious decline today. Any commercial harnessing of such data troves is to be strictly avoided.
• EXAM QUESTIONS: (1) Explain the dangers inherent in technologies like the FRT - facial recognition technology. (2) Why did the Chinese use FRT against an entire population, in Xinjiang province, and what were the consequences? Explain.

Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment

Join UPSC Self Prep course | Online Course (PT Gurukul)  | Covid Special Course | Join PT courses

* Content sourced from free internet sources (publications, PIB site, international sites, etc.). Take your own subscriptions. Copyrights acknowledged.