Hyderabad is on the brink of becoming a total surveillance city, human rights organisation Amnesty International said on Wednesday. The o...
Hyderabad is on the brink of becoming a total surveillance city, human rights organisation Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
The organisation said that Hyderabad is the most surveilled cities in the world and a Command and Control Centre meant for connecting Telangana’s facial recognition-capable CCTV infrastructure was being constructed there.
“Situated in Hyderabad’s Banjara Hills, the CCC [Command and Control Centre ] will reportedly support the processing of data from up to 6,00,000 cameras at once, with the possibility to increase this scope much further across the region,” the group said. “These cameras can be used in combination with Hyderabad Police’s existing facial recognition software to track individuals.”
The organisation’s is conducting a “Ban the Scan” campaign aimed at demanding the government to stop the use of facial recognition technology for mass surveillance in India. The research regarding the use of facial surveillance has recently begun in Hyderabad following a same project in New York City.
The Hyderabad research is in partnership with the digital rights advocacy group Internet Freedom Foundation and international human rights organisation Article 19.
A study by the Internet Freedom Foundation has found that Telangana has the highest number of facial recognition technology projects in India.
“Amnesty International is calling for a total ban on the state and private sector use, development,...
