Law enforcers outsourcing facial recognition to pvt sector, infringing rights, says study

Delhi-based think tank Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy has cautioned that the outsourcing of face recognition technology (FRT) linked surveillance functions by the law enforcers to private entities pose serious challenges to individual rights and public welfare.

A new working paper by the Centre for Applied Law and Technology Research (ALTR) at Vidhi expressed concerns over the security of data used in FRT and indiscriminate use of various datasets and said that the private provision of FRT has both short- and long-term implications.

The working paper said outsourcing the use of FRT to the private sector by the law enforcement agencies in India without any regulation may lead to sanctioning mass surveillance by private companies, when it is an exceptional issue for the state itself.

The paper notes that there is no data or documented records made available to the public in India by the law enforcement agencies involved in such practices. It quotes news reports to suggest that Indian startups like Staqu, Innefu Labs and FaceTagr provide FRT to the police.

“Foreign companies like Japan’s NEC and Israel’s Cortica are also providers of FRT to the police. Other private companies such as EY Idemia, Tech5, Thales, Anyvision and Vara Technology have been present at pre-bid conferences organised by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) for developing a national facial recognition system,” the paper says.

The paper highlights privacy risks, delegations of surveillance functions to the private sector, opaque processes and decision making and private incentives driving public policy as the four broad concerns with using the private sector for FRT.

“The development of FRT algorithms requires access to large datasets of pictures, videos, or any other graphic corpuses. This raises a question: How do private corporations have access to such data in India? The second issue that emerges is whether the state is indirectly delegating certain essential functions (to private entities), as surveillance as an activity is exceptional even for the state to pursue and is certainly not a function that can be delegated to a non-government, private entity. The third issue is around the overall lack of transparency and documentation through which procurement is materialising. The fourth issue is the fact that with private provision of surveillance technology, there is a real risk of private incentives (i.e., profit motive) directing public policy,” the working paper says.

The authors of the working paper, Ameen Jauhar and Jai Vipra, recommend implementation of transparency in FRT agreements, algorithmic regulation, clarity on data protection responsibilities, stricter legal restrictions on surveillance and public involvement in decision making over FRT as possible solutions to minimise the harms caused by the private provision of FRT for law enforcement.