Delhi Police spent ₹857 crore building an AI-powered mass surveillance system across the capital. Dubbed "Safe City," the project tracks ordinary citizens by integrating two dozen government databases, not just criminals. It operates in a legal vacuum, raising questions about India's fundamental right to privacy.
How We Got Here
The Delhi Police quietly deployed this system over the last four years, ostensibly as a "Safe City Project" for women's safety. The project collects personal data from sources like voter IDs and vehicle registrations, despite a 2017 Supreme Court ruling recognizing privacy as a fundamental right.
The Numbers
- The system can identify individuals and vehicles from its network of cameras in five seconds.
- It has built a "data lake" containing personal details and pictures of nearly four million individuals.
- Technology service providers like NEC (system integrator) and Awiros (AI video analytics, facial recognition, Anveshan search engine) built the core applications.
- The system pulls data from over two dozen databases, including Police Clearance Certificates, Electoral Photo Identity Cards, and vehicle data from Vahan and Sarathi.
What Happens Next
🇮🇳 Why This Matters for India
For startup founders and engineers across major cities, this signals a massive expansion of state surveillance, bypassing public debate on data privacy and consent.
The Take
The significant danger lies in the normalisation of state intrusion into private data, without public consent or robust legal oversight. India needs a comprehensive data protection framework now, not piecemeal project-specific arguments.
Source:
The Ken ↗