In its affidavit filed earlier than the Supreme Court docket, the Delhi Police has taken a stand that facial recognition software program deployed throughout scholar protests over examination paper leaks solely captured the pictures of criminals or historical past sheeters.
The police says that the usage of the expertise was a proportionate policing measure. The software program, in response to the affidavit, doesn’t robotically seize profile of each particular person current on the protest website, neither is it deployed for indiscriminate surveillance or assortment of non-public info of peaceable protestors until he has a earlier prison file.
The police additional claims that no motion is taken solely on the idea of facial recognition software program. A area verification can be carried out to make certain that the individual in query was current at website or not. Additional, the software program solely captures individuals who’ve a previous prison file for critical offenses, not petty offenses like visitors challans.
When the matter was heard at this time by a bench comprising CJI Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana, Solicitor Common Tushar Mehta reiterated these submissions earlier than the Court docket. SG acknowledged that the expertise captures the faces of solely these individuals who’re recorded within the crime database.
The rivalry was nonetheless met with opposition from Senior Advocates N Hariharan and Menaka Guruswamy, who claimed that that isn’t how the expertise works. Guruswamy particularly alleged that the police even engaged a non-public firm to course of the information collected via facial recognition software program.
The Supreme Court docket has also issued notice on one other petition which questions the deployment of surveillance instruments at protest websites.
When the bench proposed to relegate all points associated to the scholar protests to Excessive-Powered Committee headed by a former choose of the Court docket, the petitioners’ counsel opposed relegation of the facial recognition concern to the Committee. It was highlighted that this concern includes privateness considerations and issues of constitutional significance can’t be referred to the Committee.
Ultimately, CJI Kant assured that constitutional points could be decided by the Court docket alone.
Case :Shailendra Mani Tripathi v. Union of India and others | WP(c) No. 280/2026 (and related circumstances)
