Whose side is face-recognition technology on?

This week, the Indian government is going to close the chapter on its request for bids from companies to build India’s facial-recognition system which is going to be able to automatically identify persons from CCTV footage and other image databases. When the Internet Freedom Foundation, an organisation that fights to protect personal freedoms against digital intrusion, filed requests to see the minutes of pre-bid meetings to find out about the presentations received, the participants involved and the queries they might have had, it received a weak response from the government -- that the information could not be released because the procurement process was still underway. While scientists don’t know exactly what happens in the brain when it engages in recognition, a new study -- published as recently as October 30 -- suggests that human brains and machines have strikingly similar ways of accurately identifying faces. The Ministry of Civil Aviation, which is using this technology as part of its broader Digi Yatra campaign, says that airports cannot retain passenger information -- which includes images of their faces -- for more than an hour after their flights have departed. But that is not what Vistara’s privacy policy states -- it says that Vistara can retain passenger information for as long as it deems appropriate.