MP Moves Supreme Court Against Police Use Of Facial Recognition Technology & Biometric Surveillance At Protest Sites

An Article 32 petition has been filed in the Supreme Court against the deployment of facial recognition technology(FRT) and allied biometric-surveillance measures by the Delhi police during the recent Jantar Mantar protest led by the Cockroach Janta Party.

The petition has been filed by Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament, AA Rahim from Communist Party of India(M), Kerala, seeking a declaration that such indiscriminate biometric surveillance in peaceful assemblies is unconstitutional and should be restrained until the Parliament enacts a law validating it. 

The main grievance raised in the petition is that the Delhi police carried out surveillance in a complete legal vacuum. It has been argued that neither the Delhi Police standing orders governing protests, nor the Criminal Procedure(Identification) Act, 2022, authorises the biometric surveillance of persons in a civilian assembly.

The petitioner has submitted that Delhi police carried out automated, algorithmic extraction and matching of the biometric identifiers of the protestors, and interlinking of such data with permanent national criminal databases.  They have subjected the protestors, journalists and ordinary citizens to continuous and pervasive biometric surveillance through indiscriminate acquisition of video footage and photographs through CCTV cameras, drones, and a 'mobile command and control vehicle', as per the petitioner.

The petitioner states that Delhi police's own RTI response confirms that they have never carried out a privacy impact assessment and that FRT is internally meant to be confined to tracing missing persons and identifying the dead.

Relying on the Supreme Court's judgment on KS Puttaswamy v UOI(2017), which laid down the test of legality, legitimate aim and proportionality against the State's action, it says: "These objects are wholly unconnected with the policing of a peaceful protest. The data so collected is retained, shared and processed without any disclosed safeguard, purpose limitation or retention schedule, and is, on the Respondents' own admission, liable to be stored indefinitely and enrolled into national criminal databases without end or accountability."

Further, it is stated that the Delhi police used real-time processing of such footage so collected through the FRT using the 'Ikshana vehicle' and 'AnjaLens' smart spectacles. It has also collected and matched fingerprints through the National Records Bureau's Abhigyan mobile application.

Petitioner points out that the 'Ikshana' vehicle and the 'AjnaLens' smart spectacles were designed, supplied and are operated by private identities - Aditya Infotech Ltd under CP Plus brand and Dimension NXG Pvt Ltd under the AjnaLens brand.

"These private entities are integral to, and act in concert with the State in, the discharge of the quintessentially public and sovereign function of policing and the biometric identification of citizens, and are, on the Petitioner's information, in possession or control of the footage, facial templates and biometric data of the persons surveilled. No data-processing or data-handling agreement governing this arrangement, or the access enjoyed by these vendors or any third party to such sensitive data, has been disclosed to the public."

The petitioner has also submitted that there should be a disclosure of technologies, databases and vendor arrangements involved, and establishing a mechanism enabling any affected persons to access such data and to seek its deletion through a grievance redressal process. There is also a direction to private respondents to preserve, cease using and permanently delete biometric data in their custody.

A petition filed by SFI leader Aishe Ghosh challenging the use of surveillance tools at the Jantar Mantar protest site is pending in the Delhi High Court.

Case Details: AA RAHIM M.P. v UNION OF INDIA|Diary No.45049/2026

Advocate Subhash Chandran KR for petitioner