India to use technology that spots a face in 22mn

INDIA has planned to put into use facial recognition technology on its train services to get hold of fare dodgers and criminals by helping police to scan through images of 22 million daily commuters.

The Indian Railways has installed CCTV at 800 of the country’s 7,349 railway stations while the remaining ones will get them eventually, The Times, UK, reported.

So far, 500 of the cameras installed have facial recognition technology to help the railway police force catch criminals and child traffickers besides ensuring passenger safety.

The plan to install the CCTVs at railway services is part of a big drive to stall them across the country to improve security.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, for example, has boasted that the national capital of India has more cameras than London. He also sited a Forbes India report that looked at 150 cities to see the level of camera surveillance and found that Delhi was way ahead of London with 1,826 cameras per square mile as against the latter’s 1,138.

The Indian capital has seen a CCTV push ever since the 2012 gangrape incident in which a 23-year-old paramedic student was brutally raped on a moving bus. Sexual violence against women was linked to vast stretches of the city being poorly lit and lack of CCTV cameras.

Following the death of the woman, the Delhi High Court ordered the installation of more cameras.

However, privacy concerns have also come up, since India doesn’t have a law that particularly deals with protecting personal data.