The story so far: The Supreme Court on Tuesday (August 18, 2026) said it will examine the “proportionality” of the use of facial recognition system (FRS) deployed during the students’ protest in the national capital last month after the Delhi Police in an affidavit admitted to its use.
The police said that “FRS does not automatically capture, create, generate, or maintain profiles of every individual present at the protest site, nor is it deployed for indiscriminate surveillance or collection of personal information of peaceful protesters unless he has a previous criminal record,” and assured that the use of the technology was “legitimate, bona fide, and proportionate policing measure”. In its recent affidavit in the Supreme Court, the Delhi Police said that “FRS does not automatically capture, create, generate, or maintain profiles of every individual present at the protest site, nor is it deployed for indiscriminate surveillance or collection of personal information of peaceful protesters unless they have a previous criminal record.”
Cameras from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Kolkata, are reportedly proposed to be linked to the NATGRID as well. The CCTNS is also linked to the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) , a secure platform for the police and investigating agencies to access government and private databases in real-time, which in turn has been linked to the National Population Register, which has family-wise details of around 120 crore residents in India.
Also in June this year, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) Director General Praveer Ranjan said that facial recognition cameras installed at all major airports in the country will be linked to a data fusion centre proposed to come up in Delhi.
Authorities have been ordered to preserve digital evidence from the protest site to examine the allegations of police excesses, but the footages used for FRS could become a tool for profiling in the future. While the Delhi Police in the latest case said 2,873 persons with criminal antecedents were identified from the protest site thousands of others who took part in the protests were also monitored and there is no clarity on what will happen to the footages collected for the FRS.
