Risk of Surveillance due to Emerging Technologies

Over the past few years, new technologies such as GPS tracking, contact tracing, and facial recognition technologies have offered opportunities for improving process efficiency, security, and convenience. However, the absence of adequate regulatory systems has the potential to expose individuals to risks of misidentification and surveillance by both public and private institutions.

Technology has been evolving at a lightning speed over the past few years, resulting in the emergence of drones, AI, biometrics, contact tracing, virtual reality, blockchain, and other new use cases. As a result, innovations such as Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) have been deployed across companies like Meta, initially for photo-tagging, and now for building the Metaverse, to schools and offices to monitor and ensure the safety of students and employees. Leading businesses and even certain Municipal Corporations in India have begun using FRTs for attendance and other efficiencytracking software.

These softwares are also finding use in public law enforcement systems, with the goal of improving efficiency and accuracy. Over the past few years, state police forces in India have started using FRTs as part of their public video surveillance systems to find missing individuals, prevent crimes, and counter terrorism. Similarly, this technology is also used in Aadhaar authentication, voter identification, and KYC verifications. Contact tracing technology was widely used to control the spread of COVID-19. Deploying these CCTV, drone and FRTbased systems have been helping in creating a safe and efficient society.

However, concerns arise over these technologies, as they currently do not have standards in place to regulate them or certify their quality. This has resulted in the emergence of several risks around data privacy, consent and sharing issues, misidentification, and surveillance by authorities, including employers, institutional heads, technology platforms and law enforcement agencies.

Definition

Surveillance can be understood as the close observation of someone or something in order to gather information or data. The main objective of surveillance is to monitor the activities of an individual and can be used for other purposes too.71

HOW DOES IT IMPACT INDIVIDUALS?

Manoj is a 39-year-old migrant construction worker in Hyderabad. He uses his second-hand smartphone for online games, social media, and occasionally for remittances.

Recently, there was a theft in one of the commercial buildings in Hyderabad. The CCTV footage of the building was used in facial recognition software and the algorithm of the software led to the misidentification of Manoj as the thief.

While Manoj was at work that day, and thus had an alibi, this misunderstanding took some time to get resolved before all formal procedure against him was dropped. It also had a negative impact on Manoj and his family’s wellbeing while he was being investigated.

Over the past six years, experts have started highlighting the potential misidentification and surveillance risks of new technologies if not used responsibly. The system has moved from the latent to the nascent stage. However, there are limited regulatory solutions to mitigate these risks.

2016 status: FRT, contact tracing, drones and other technologies were not being used widely and hence there was limited awareness and discussion on the potential risks.

2022 status: The understanding of risks exists but is limited to experts and no solutions exist. The IT Act is usually cited as the relevant law for the usage of FRTs. However, the laws regarding the usage of biometric data under the IT Act need to be strengthened to address risks effectively.

Key Developments

Use of FRT in offices

Facial recognition for solving crimes

Debates on contact tracing apps

FRT usage during COVID vaccinations

Digi Yatra introduced at airports

A leading IT company installed FRT in one of their offices not only for employee attendance but also to gauge the mood of the employees and hence the workplace.72

NCRB published a Request for Proposal for AFRS, a centralised database of photos and videos of people’s faces to be used by the police in crime prevention and detection.73

Contact-tracing apps like the Aarogya Setu were launched to curb the spread of COVID-19. There were significant debates on the need to mitigate potential risks associated with such software.74

There were concerns expressed on the adequacy of testing and legal vetting processes for the use of FRT for COVID.76

The government launched the Digi Yatra initiative, an FRT-based airline boarding system. In this context, NITI Aayog has called for a codified data protection regime to govern such systems.77

Key Trends

Increase in debates and evidence on potential risks of technologies such as FRT, contact tracing and others.

In 2016, surveillance using emerging technologies was not a key topic for discussion, but this has changed in 2022, especially due to the recent use of these technologies in solving issues such as disease control, crime prevention and detection, employee efficiency, and student activity monitoring. RTIs and petitions have been filed by stakeholders, raising concerns about potential harm from these technologies, especially if the necessary safeguards are not explicitly explained.75

5: Technologies for Safety & Law Enforcement |

Risk of Surveillance due to Emerging Technologies

Opportunities For Philanthropic Investment

While experts are extensively discussing risks in emerging technologies, the understanding of these risks is yet to trickle down to other stakeholders in the ecosystem as well as to consumers/ individuals. Our research recommends the following pathways for philanthropic investment:

Build a shared understanding of risks and their impact by creating a vocabulary and early evidence of the risks.

Build a community of responsible actors who can discuss and solve complex issues.

The table below presents gap areas and illustrative funding opportunities for philanthropy to further reduce the risk of surveillance due to emerging technologies:

Pathways

Illustrative Opportunities

Conduct and disseminate research among individuals and policymakers to create a shared understanding of the manifestation and magnitude of the potential and risk of FRTs in the Indian context.

Conduct extensive research to understand the impact on data protection for each of these technologies, and create a repository that can be used as a reference before the technologies are adopted for law enforcement in the Indian context.

Fund fellowships or skilling programmes to increase awareness among practitioners (programmers, entrepreneurs, public policy experts), to create a strong community of responsible technology actors.