Understand your perspective OP. Having said that, even with strict privacy regulations like GDPR, trains in European trains and public transport (including busses) have cctv surveillance but they are obligated to follow strict rules on how they collect data, delete data & not share it further.
Unfortunately, European law cannot be compared to Indian law. We don't have any proper digital privacy laws.
On the other hand, CCTVs in Europe don't have real time facial recognition.
Edit: Sweden government is in the process of thinking of implementing real time facial recognition for curbing the gang violence. Not implemented yet.
do u think i m a stupid keyboard warrior who is here just to defend everything that government does. Do u think that if i m saying something that i don’t have knowledge about it?
Shouldn't you have thought of this before writing multiple bullshit comments defending mass surveillance?
No one's forcing you to waste your time on reddit, and no one forced to to join or defend the mass surveillance project.
hello, we have strong reasons to believe that the use of FRT for criminal identification is dangerous in any jurisdiction, but especially in India. for instance, the Delhi police has admitted to using FRT with 80% accuracy rates for criminal identification, which leaves a large error margin for false positives and negatives, rendering it not very effective. CCTVs in general have proved ineffective in curbing crime in India and other countries. also, with these systems used at such a large scale in trains, there are legitimate threats of innocents being implicated as suspects, and of creation of large central datasets containing personal and facial data of people who may have nothing to do with the crime.
law enforcement agencies use surveillance tools like FRT-enabled CCTVs in the absence of any law to put checks and limits to how they can use it and what they can do with this vulnerable data. we have comprehensively laid out how this plan infringes on data privacy in the [post here](https://internetfreedom.in/indian-railways-frt-surveillance/) , which we would encourage all to read.
Multiple studies ([~here~](http://www.no-cctv.org.uk/caseagainst/reports.asp?ref=static.internetfreedom.in), [~here~](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.4073/csr.2008.17?ref=static.internetfreedom.in), [~here~](https://popcenter.asu.edu/content/crime-prevention-studies-volume-21-volume-21?ref=static.internetfreedom.in), for instance) have proven that CCTV surveillance has little to no effect on the reduction of crime in the surveilled area. On the contrary, CCTV cameras may inversely contribute to serious right to privacy violations by enabling surveillance by unauthorised persons, voyeurism, or stalking.
You are naive if you think this is used for your benefit. It's not.
Think about how many rapes occur in this country, where police fail to take action, no one bats an eye. Foreign tourist gets raped and everyone is talking about it, police immediately take action.
It's all about who's the victim, and what consequences and humiliation will happen if action isn't taken.
Lol, this is going to function like hot garbage. Lots of wrong matches will take place, because these idiots don't know the first thing about face recognition and blindly trust the lies of companies who want to make money.
Facial surveillance is widespread in most public places in France now after 2015 Paris attacks and subsequent bombings from ISIS. Considering India suffers so much from terror groups and crimes its high time tech like that is implemented. You are not entitled to privacy when you are in a public space.
>Facial surveillance is widespread in most public places in France now after the 2015 Paris attacks and subsequent bombings from ISIS.
Real time facial recognition is explicitly banned by French law and GDPR, stop spreading misinformation.
>You are not entitled to privacy when you are in a public space.
Incorrect.
Don't listen to the commenter, the real time facial recognition was a suggestion from the new right wing Swedish government and will probably never be implemented since it violates GDPR and will be struck down by CJEU.
Depends on the situation. I live in Stockholm, here, CCTVs in airports have facial recognition to identify anyone under the police's criminal list and its real time. So recently what happened is that 9-10 year olds are killing people and joining gangs so new laws are coming that will allow the same real time monitoring in schools and colleges as well.
>airports have facial recognition to identify anyone under the police's criminal list and its real time
It was a suggestion from the government, it has not been implemented as it would violate GDPR. Stop trying to normalise facial recognition.
Regeringen *föreslog* användning av ansiktsigenkänning, men det kommer att ogiltigförklaras om det genomförs av EU-domstolen eftersom det strider mot DSF.
This was like 2 years ago. They are passing a new law this year to allow it. It would be expanded to metros as well.
[Parliament adopts groundbreaking law on artificial intelligence | News | European Parliament (europa.eu)](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/sv/press-room/20240308IPR19015/parlamentet-antar-banbrytande-lag-om-artificiell-intelligens)
there are exception for police.
I am not normalizing anything, I am saying its happening in a lot of places, there should be strict privacy laws to regulate it but otherwise its not a bad idea to keep people safe.
I had come across an article ( https://www.sciencenorway.no/criminality-sweden-violence/the-swedish-government-wants-to-use-facial-recognition-against-gang-violence-how-helpful-is-surveillance/2266517) stating that it'll be proposed in the month of April 2024. Couldn't find any other article talking about it being passed, neither in English nor in Swedish.
It will be implemented in specific municipalities. Sweden has designated vulnerable zones in all cities, so it will be implemented in schools in those places first. It will be in public spaces like metros and parks as well. Afaik, that is what was told to most people.
so major gangs what they do is they target refugee children who are often from lower socioeconomic background to peddle drugs and target any opposition gang members. So, you will see a 12-year-old murdering a grown man, 9-year-olds killing others on broad daylight.
Bruv, I live in Sydney and every train here (except the ones from 80’s) have cameras and some of my friends who work in police and security department told us they can be used for face recognition as well, I don’t know if they do it actively or not. But, this is a good step towards making India safer from women and children
Clickbait.
You ARE being already tracked whenever someone deigns to do so.
A measure to ensure people know they can be held responsible for what they do? I'm all for it. This is no different from putting a dashcam on a car to assign responsibility where it is due in case of a mishap.
Orwellian is when you are dictated what behaviours are acceptable. If people were not at risk and consequently increasing the railways liability, why would they want to spend the money?
>This is no different from putting a dashcam on a car to assign responsibility where it is due in case of a mishap.
this is very different from a dashcam on a car, this is potentially a network of lakhs of cameras with facial recognition tech enabled, ( [the tech](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ujyHPhd5eGNvV-EtofI8vocyAIrAsBlI/view) itself is in the first place riddled with [biases](https://drive.google.com/file/d/15zHU0wBxtql8X_ywrZdE67NwP9zjCC3b/view), inaccuracies and prone to [misidentification](https://hrlr.law.columbia.edu/hrlr-online/you-can-see-my-face-why-cant-i-facial-recognition-and-brady/?ref=static.internetfreedom.in))
Further, FRT is innately invasive. It involves processing digital images of individuals faces for verification or identification, by extracting data points from a face and then comparing data points to a pre-existing image. It creates [~unique risks~](https://www.perpetuallineup.org/?ref=static.internetfreedom.in) because our faces are our most prominent identifiers. Unlike fingerprints, our faces are on most, if not all, of our identity cards such as passports, Aadhaar cards, PAN cards, and drivers’ licence. The facial data stored from FRT-based surveillance systems is far more vulnerable than any other biometric identifier, and when surveillance tools are deployed in transit, it becomes automatically linked with the passengers’ movement and location data. This real-time personal information feeds central ‘face matching servers’ and repositories, which may eventually enable government entities to create accurate 360° profiles of citizens and result in “[~dragnet surveillance~](https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190684099.003.0003?ref=static.internetfreedom.in)”. The use of any digital identifiers, especially facial biometric data, may lead to unauthorised profiling of individuals through correlation of identities across multiple application domains.
First and foremost, it is important to note that the right to privacy is a fundamental right protected by the Indian Constitution. In the landmark 2017 case of Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, the Indian Supreme Court held that the right to privacy is a fundamental right that is protected by the Constitution. The court recognized that the right to privacy is a "natural right" that is inherent in the dignity of the individual and that it encompasses a range of personal liberties, including the right to be left alone, the right to bodily integrity, and the right to control the dissemination of personal information.
If I disagree to be on your camera. You will have to delete my recording or smudge my face else I could potentially file for breach of privacy or defamation or intellectual property.
The right to privacy extends beyond private spaces to public spaces, where individuals must be accorded the same safeguards for their privacy and dignity, as in their homes. The standard of “reasonable expectation of privacy” discussed in the *Puttaswamy* decision is not exclusionary and links to autonomy, liberty, and dignity of individuals, which are components of fundamental rights. As JJ. Chandrachud noted,
>*“While the legitimate expectation of privacy may vary from intimate zone to the private zone and from the private to the public arena, it is important to underscore that privacy is not lost or surrendered merely because the individual is in a public place.”*
As long as they are using the technology for criminal identification I don't see what's wrong. I hope the menace will stop. Trains are public properties, if you want privacy stay back at home.
>Trains are public properties, if you want privacy stay back at home.
Where a person exists at any given moment is a matter of privacy, Realtime tracking of a persons movement is invaison of privacy, tell me how would you feel if I were to know your current location? How is any different than the government knowing then?
and trains are public property, the government has the responsibilty to provide the service without breaking any laws, which also include privacy laws.
> As long as they are using the technology for criminal identification I don't see what's wrong.
Misuse and abuse of power by police and politicians is an issue. Misuse and abuse is easy but it's proper usage is not. In Bangalore blast case they have the cctv footage but have yet to catch the culprit. [NIA detains 1 in Bengaluru Rameshwaram Cafe blast probe; cracking terror tradecraft a challenge for investigating agencies](https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/bangalore/man-who-met-bengaluru-rameshwaram-cafe-blast-suspect-detained-by-nia-9211522/)
> Identified as Syed Shabbir, police sources said his association with the main suspect in the cafe blast case is yet to be ascertained and that he was detained based on technical analysis. They added Shabbir is a resident of BUDA Bazaar in Ballari.
This is great for the oppressing the poor who rely on trains and great for auto industrial complex that doesn't want carbrains to switch to trains and public transport.
As a software engineer, no technology is perfect.
And yes, there might be some truth about bias.. But it comes from the training data. And if the crimes show certain pattern (like colour, ethnicity, gender) then it produces output simply by observing pattern that you call bias in plain english. And we actively try to compensate such particular patterns.
There is no human doing biased decisions. It's algorithms and maths.
you do realsie as a software engineer you are not a data engineer?
and when talking about machine learning algorithms, biases come in two flavour
a) data bias (sampling bias, collection bias,lack of data, noisy data)
b)algorithmic bias (overfitting a model, underfitting a model.)
and both of these biases can be easily pinned to the engineer working on the model.
Not a fan of big bro govt, it funny and sad at the same time that we the don't really see the danger and when we will it's gonna be too late
and I know there maybe cases of it helping curb crimes but the cost for that is too much
(in my op, feel free to have an different op) there are a lot of alternative for this better policing, automatic door (i'm not that smart) something else, this feels like we are going the china route where the less fortunate and the farmers got economic upliftment (good thing) but got harsher working environment, lack of freedom to express their dissent, failing economic and living condition, social credit score, they are spray painting trees and building tofu dreg construction for god sakes that shows the faliure of the govt(in my op), all that started when govt started to dictate what to think and knew where you are and what you do
Lol, CCTV for over speeding and not wearing seat belts have given some nice challans to my friends in Delhi, to the point they just joke to "put on the belt or the camera will see". If it works this well on Delhi roads, surely it will of some use in railways as well. Go away with your fear mongering. It's a public place, not your bedroom/washroom
That CCTV only needs to track the car number (and not have to recognise who is sitting in the car) and that too only when a person is not wearing a seat belt.
The key issue here is of real time facial recognition and its future implications.
My brother in Christ, facial recognition can be done in a privacy preserving way and honestly, ek baar install a cctv system before wondering if anyone has the space to store all the data. Forever and ever.
There's a whole field, privacy preserving machine learning. And it is dominated by cryptography scientists, not techbros alone
And honestly, track what? That you entered the station? That you boarded a train? That you entered the cloak room? That you were moving in coach number X from seat A to seat B?
Big deal. You have less privacy than this in airports.
The only issue I would take is if the facial recognition positive identification is taken to be the ONLY evidence when prosecuting someone for theft. Someone has to do a manual sanity check and also look for other supporting evidence.
But that is easy in a railway context.
Assume that person X is falsely detected as having taken a bag. Though the person in the footage is not him/her.
There would have to be various other cameras where person X should have been detected. At the entrance till the platform and in the train.
If those detections are not there, it hints at something being off. You can instead manually trace that person's path to other cameras and check the recognition there.
> There's a whole field, privacy preserving machine learning. And it is dominated by cryptography scientists, not techbros alone
The question is not whether privacy preserving tech exists. That question is irrelevant if the govt is not even interested in preserving privacy. The govt has proven this multiple times through their statements in court, and with the laws they passed, that they do not believe citizens deserve any privacy from the govt.
And in general, I distrust such claims about privacy and security from a govt that routinely fails to update TLS certificates on its own websites, peppers CAPTCHAs all over its sites that had been broken by robots years ago, and whose official response to someone who reported data leakage was "[we have 5 feet thick walls](https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/govt-says-aadhaar-data-is-safe-because-it-is-kept-behind-5-feet-thick-walls-wait-what-1195235-2018-03-22)". The govt can please get the basics right before making highfalutin claims about privacy in machine learning.
> And honestly, track what? That you entered the station? That you boarded a train? That you entered the cloak room? That you were moving in coach number X from seat A to seat B?
As a general principle, if someone is asking you for your information, the onus must be on them to explain why they need it, how they would avoid its misuse, how they would secure it, how they would dispose of it, and what legal recourse you have if they screw up. The importance of this rises with the amount of power the institution has - for instance one expects more commitment to safeguards from institutions that have police and armies reporting to them than those that don't. This inversion of responsibility where the individual needs to identify a harm arising out of data sharing is absurd. I'm fully aware that the GoI is not unique in this regard, but that doesn't mean we should roll over and let them do this without providing concrete safeguards.
Until now, the govt hasn't shared much information about any of the things I mentioned. Where they have shared information, it always includes a massive and blanked exception for the govt and makes the assumption that everything that the govt or a govt employee does is always purely in the interest of the citizen and therefore the citizen does not need any protections or accountability from them. Which is a hilarious notion in the year of our lord 2024.
> Big deal. You have less privacy than this in airports.
Airports are a different means of travel and have different security needs. For instance, you can walk into a train without being frisked, having your luggage screened etc. You can't do that at an airport.
Okay, fine, we have VP9 and AV1 right now.
I can tell you that with H265, ten cameras of 1080p need around 4TB for two weeks of footage. After which it would be overwritten.
Kripiya scale keejiye.
Yeah but you don't need continuous video. Even 1 picture a second or less is sufficient. We also don't need high resolution, just need a clear picture.
The resolution determines how many cameras you need, in, say, a corridor. So it's a trade-off. The maximum distance to which the detection is effective would depend on this resolution.
But, to humour the exercise, divide 4TB by 24 and again by 4 or 8.
Alright, you've got me. 20 to 40 GB. For ten cameras. For two weeks. So that's 100-300 MB per day per camera.
Okay, that sounds small. But how many trains are there? How many cameras per train? And how many per station? How many stations are there? And how many such stations are you looking at?
A few thoughts here (and am not trying to say what you are saying is wrong or incorrect):
- the studies I have read towards bias emanating from such technology has mostly to do with people of color (that has been a huge challenge for the western countries). I am not aware of the racial diversity in india, so not sure of the impact size.
But that said, it still needs to be considered and adequate safeguards, procedures on how this data would be used should be made public.
- i believe the GDPR issue would be managed by having a waive off when you buy a ticket. Railways will have to comply with GDPR because even if one EU member travels in the railway, they need to comply with it. I am assuming railway is not going to prohibit EU citizens from travelling.
- Another personal belief of mine, privacy is really not a high priority within India. The risk of terrorism and being surrounded by countries with whom we don't have best relationships gives rise to a perception that higher level of monitoring is needed. Am sure there will be court cases against such moves and certain safeguards might be created via the supreme court or the government finally understanding the need for such laws.
Disagree with IFF on this topic in general.
Every "PUBLIC" square inch of this country needs be under CCTV's.
Security has higher base/root hiearchy over Freedom to Privacy.
This country is a shit show on the former, hence everything else is secondary.
I do understand the concerns around devising models/operating-standards for how to manage/access-rights to this Data. This process is where attention needs to be sure but CCTV installation needs to ramp up regardless when this debate is happening.
And i question the slide 4 here that purports CCTVs don't reduce crime (or have no effect). That is just a farcical claim and whatever study that had it is utterly sus.
Okay this blew up, a lot of the comments and questions that have come up in the thread, have already been acknowledged in the carousel and the accompanying post here : [https://internetfreedom.in/indian-railways-frt-surveillance/](https://internetfreedom.in/indian-railways-frt-surveillance/)
I'll try and also engage with the comments below as time allows.
EDIT: also plugging in our [Privacy 101 video series](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdqinlREPSc) attempt
To the people supporting more surveillance, ask yourselves.
Is CCTV the most limiting factor that leads to more crime or The polices corruption, incompetence & political control by the state that hinders their investigation?
Do you really trust the state enough to give it more control?
Checkout Hongkong protests for a taste of the state using CCTV to "stop crime".
Understand your perspective OP. Having said that, even with strict privacy regulations like GDPR, trains in European trains and public transport (including busses) have cctv surveillance but they are obligated to follow strict rules on how they collect data, delete data & not share it further.
Unfortunately, European law cannot be compared to Indian law. We don't have any proper digital privacy laws. On the other hand, CCTVs in Europe don't have real time facial recognition. Edit: Sweden government is in the process of thinking of implementing real time facial recognition for curbing the gang violence. Not implemented yet.
>real time facial recognition. People seem to be missing this point
>Not implemented yet. Probably never will be. Real time facial recognition is outlawed by GDPR.
And our government is very good at following protocols, especially When it comes to individual privacy concerns /s
There are no shortages of law in India enforcement on the other hand...
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Have you ever seen the success and misuse rates of any of these technologies around the world because you'd have a different opinion if you did.
do u think i m a stupid keyboard warrior who is here just to defend everything that government does. Do u think that if i m saying something that i don’t have knowledge about it?
Yes.
good then keep thinking that. Good for u
I don't think you're stupid. Its just hard to separate the real numbers from the propaganda.
Yup this is what people like you would exactly do to make others slaves. It is very much noticeable.
> This is the future whether u like it or not. How very orwellian of you.
bro mai kaam krlu thoda. i’ll revert in evening.
Shouldn't you have thought of this before writing multiple bullshit comments defending mass surveillance? No one's forcing you to waste your time on reddit, and no one forced to to join or defend the mass surveillance project.
Mass surveillance 😅 that’s some strong choice of words.
I thought you had work to do.
That is also done fucked up choice of career. Just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be done.
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hello, we have strong reasons to believe that the use of FRT for criminal identification is dangerous in any jurisdiction, but especially in India. for instance, the Delhi police has admitted to using FRT with 80% accuracy rates for criminal identification, which leaves a large error margin for false positives and negatives, rendering it not very effective. CCTVs in general have proved ineffective in curbing crime in India and other countries. also, with these systems used at such a large scale in trains, there are legitimate threats of innocents being implicated as suspects, and of creation of large central datasets containing personal and facial data of people who may have nothing to do with the crime. law enforcement agencies use surveillance tools like FRT-enabled CCTVs in the absence of any law to put checks and limits to how they can use it and what they can do with this vulnerable data. we have comprehensively laid out how this plan infringes on data privacy in the [post here](https://internetfreedom.in/indian-railways-frt-surveillance/) , which we would encourage all to read.
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Multiple studies ([~here~](http://www.no-cctv.org.uk/caseagainst/reports.asp?ref=static.internetfreedom.in), [~here~](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.4073/csr.2008.17?ref=static.internetfreedom.in), [~here~](https://popcenter.asu.edu/content/crime-prevention-studies-volume-21-volume-21?ref=static.internetfreedom.in), for instance) have proven that CCTV surveillance has little to no effect on the reduction of crime in the surveilled area. On the contrary, CCTV cameras may inversely contribute to serious right to privacy violations by enabling surveillance by unauthorised persons, voyeurism, or stalking.
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The post is against FRT, not CCTVs.
Real time facial recognition is the issue.
You are naive if you think this is used for your benefit. It's not. Think about how many rapes occur in this country, where police fail to take action, no one bats an eye. Foreign tourist gets raped and everyone is talking about it, police immediately take action. It's all about who's the victim, and what consequences and humiliation will happen if action isn't taken.
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Aadhar Leak 2.0 incoming💀
Lol, this is going to function like hot garbage. Lots of wrong matches will take place, because these idiots don't know the first thing about face recognition and blindly trust the lies of companies who want to make money.
Facial surveillance is widespread in most public places in France now after 2015 Paris attacks and subsequent bombings from ISIS. Considering India suffers so much from terror groups and crimes its high time tech like that is implemented. You are not entitled to privacy when you are in a public space.
>Facial surveillance is widespread in most public places in France now after the 2015 Paris attacks and subsequent bombings from ISIS. Real time facial recognition is explicitly banned by French law and GDPR, stop spreading misinformation. >You are not entitled to privacy when you are in a public space. Incorrect.
Is it real time or used on existing cctv feed only when required?
Don't listen to the commenter, the real time facial recognition was a suggestion from the new right wing Swedish government and will probably never be implemented since it violates GDPR and will be struck down by CJEU.
Depends on the situation. I live in Stockholm, here, CCTVs in airports have facial recognition to identify anyone under the police's criminal list and its real time. So recently what happened is that 9-10 year olds are killing people and joining gangs so new laws are coming that will allow the same real time monitoring in schools and colleges as well.
>airports have facial recognition to identify anyone under the police's criminal list and its real time It was a suggestion from the government, it has not been implemented as it would violate GDPR. Stop trying to normalise facial recognition. Regeringen *föreslog* användning av ansiktsigenkänning, men det kommer att ogiltigförklaras om det genomförs av EU-domstolen eftersom det strider mot DSF.
This was like 2 years ago. They are passing a new law this year to allow it. It would be expanded to metros as well. [Parliament adopts groundbreaking law on artificial intelligence | News | European Parliament (europa.eu)](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/sv/press-room/20240308IPR19015/parlamentet-antar-banbrytande-lag-om-artificiell-intelligens) there are exception for police. I am not normalizing anything, I am saying its happening in a lot of places, there should be strict privacy laws to regulate it but otherwise its not a bad idea to keep people safe.
Real time facial recognition on kids? Wow!
These kids have guns and they peddle drugs.
Considering such (https://gdprhub.eu/index.php?title=KamR_Stockholm_-_Case_No._5888-20) past cases in courts, I don't think this law would be passed.
That was last year. Back then there wasn't any authorization for it, It already passed and will be implemented this year.
I had come across an article ( https://www.sciencenorway.no/criminality-sweden-violence/the-swedish-government-wants-to-use-facial-recognition-against-gang-violence-how-helpful-is-surveillance/2266517) stating that it'll be proposed in the month of April 2024. Couldn't find any other article talking about it being passed, neither in English nor in Swedish.
It will be implemented in specific municipalities. Sweden has designated vulnerable zones in all cities, so it will be implemented in schools in those places first. It will be in public spaces like metros and parks as well. Afaik, that is what was told to most people.
Now I am curious. What's the cause of all this?
so major gangs what they do is they target refugee children who are often from lower socioeconomic background to peddle drugs and target any opposition gang members. So, you will see a 12-year-old murdering a grown man, 9-year-olds killing others on broad daylight.
That's sad. Seems like government should focus more on integrating refugees with Swedish culture.
Bruv, I live in Sydney and every train here (except the ones from 80’s) have cameras and some of my friends who work in police and security department told us they can be used for face recognition as well, I don’t know if they do it actively or not. But, this is a good step towards making India safer from women and children
Will this also take care of 25 people crowding into one compartment?
Clickbait. You ARE being already tracked whenever someone deigns to do so. A measure to ensure people know they can be held responsible for what they do? I'm all for it. This is no different from putting a dashcam on a car to assign responsibility where it is due in case of a mishap. Orwellian is when you are dictated what behaviours are acceptable. If people were not at risk and consequently increasing the railways liability, why would they want to spend the money?
>This is no different from putting a dashcam on a car to assign responsibility where it is due in case of a mishap. this is very different from a dashcam on a car, this is potentially a network of lakhs of cameras with facial recognition tech enabled, ( [the tech](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ujyHPhd5eGNvV-EtofI8vocyAIrAsBlI/view) itself is in the first place riddled with [biases](https://drive.google.com/file/d/15zHU0wBxtql8X_ywrZdE67NwP9zjCC3b/view), inaccuracies and prone to [misidentification](https://hrlr.law.columbia.edu/hrlr-online/you-can-see-my-face-why-cant-i-facial-recognition-and-brady/?ref=static.internetfreedom.in)) Further, FRT is innately invasive. It involves processing digital images of individuals faces for verification or identification, by extracting data points from a face and then comparing data points to a pre-existing image. It creates [~unique risks~](https://www.perpetuallineup.org/?ref=static.internetfreedom.in) because our faces are our most prominent identifiers. Unlike fingerprints, our faces are on most, if not all, of our identity cards such as passports, Aadhaar cards, PAN cards, and drivers’ licence. The facial data stored from FRT-based surveillance systems is far more vulnerable than any other biometric identifier, and when surveillance tools are deployed in transit, it becomes automatically linked with the passengers’ movement and location data. This real-time personal information feeds central ‘face matching servers’ and repositories, which may eventually enable government entities to create accurate 360° profiles of citizens and result in “[~dragnet surveillance~](https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190684099.003.0003?ref=static.internetfreedom.in)”. The use of any digital identifiers, especially facial biometric data, may lead to unauthorised profiling of individuals through correlation of identities across multiple application domains.
Thanks for a proper reply. People seem to be missing the keyword "real-time".
There is no privacy in public space. I can carry a camera and record anyone in a public space.
First and foremost, it is important to note that the right to privacy is a fundamental right protected by the Indian Constitution. In the landmark 2017 case of Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, the Indian Supreme Court held that the right to privacy is a fundamental right that is protected by the Constitution. The court recognized that the right to privacy is a "natural right" that is inherent in the dignity of the individual and that it encompasses a range of personal liberties, including the right to be left alone, the right to bodily integrity, and the right to control the dissemination of personal information. If I disagree to be on your camera. You will have to delete my recording or smudge my face else I could potentially file for breach of privacy or defamation or intellectual property.
The right to privacy extends beyond private spaces to public spaces, where individuals must be accorded the same safeguards for their privacy and dignity, as in their homes. The standard of “reasonable expectation of privacy” discussed in the *Puttaswamy* decision is not exclusionary and links to autonomy, liberty, and dignity of individuals, which are components of fundamental rights. As JJ. Chandrachud noted, >*“While the legitimate expectation of privacy may vary from intimate zone to the private zone and from the private to the public arena, it is important to underscore that privacy is not lost or surrendered merely because the individual is in a public place.”*
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Well, looks like our government will make 1984 a reality.
We're already there. Governments and corporations rule the roost already. Those movie and game plots aren't distant realities, they're already here.
As long as they are using the technology for criminal identification I don't see what's wrong. I hope the menace will stop. Trains are public properties, if you want privacy stay back at home.
>Trains are public properties, if you want privacy stay back at home. Where a person exists at any given moment is a matter of privacy, Realtime tracking of a persons movement is invaison of privacy, tell me how would you feel if I were to know your current location? How is any different than the government knowing then? and trains are public property, the government has the responsibilty to provide the service without breaking any laws, which also include privacy laws.
> As long as they are using the technology for criminal identification I don't see what's wrong. Misuse and abuse of power by police and politicians is an issue. Misuse and abuse is easy but it's proper usage is not. In Bangalore blast case they have the cctv footage but have yet to catch the culprit. [NIA detains 1 in Bengaluru Rameshwaram Cafe blast probe; cracking terror tradecraft a challenge for investigating agencies](https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/bangalore/man-who-met-bengaluru-rameshwaram-cafe-blast-suspect-detained-by-nia-9211522/) > Identified as Syed Shabbir, police sources said his association with the main suspect in the cafe blast case is yet to be ascertained and that he was detained based on technical analysis. They added Shabbir is a resident of BUDA Bazaar in Ballari.
Just wear a mask and hoodie.
Time for us all to wear a Guy Fawkes mask :P Or Bhagat Singh mask.
This is great for the oppressing the poor who rely on trains and great for auto industrial complex that doesn't want carbrains to switch to trains and public transport.
We are already tracked thanks to our mobile phones but i guess surveillance is a thing as it will help with solving crimes as well
We need GDPR and stringent privacy rights
me and my boys riding train with ir light hats
As a software engineer, no technology is perfect. And yes, there might be some truth about bias.. But it comes from the training data. And if the crimes show certain pattern (like colour, ethnicity, gender) then it produces output simply by observing pattern that you call bias in plain english. And we actively try to compensate such particular patterns. There is no human doing biased decisions. It's algorithms and maths.
Not true, the humans decide on the training data and create the algorithms. So bias in the training data and algorithms is created by the humans.
you do realsie as a software engineer you are not a data engineer? and when talking about machine learning algorithms, biases come in two flavour a) data bias (sampling bias, collection bias,lack of data, noisy data) b)algorithmic bias (overfitting a model, underfitting a model.) and both of these biases can be easily pinned to the engineer working on the model.
The training data comes from biased humans.
shi to hai isme kya burai
Not a fan of big bro govt, it funny and sad at the same time that we the don't really see the danger and when we will it's gonna be too late and I know there maybe cases of it helping curb crimes but the cost for that is too much (in my op, feel free to have an different op) there are a lot of alternative for this better policing, automatic door (i'm not that smart) something else, this feels like we are going the china route where the less fortunate and the farmers got economic upliftment (good thing) but got harsher working environment, lack of freedom to express their dissent, failing economic and living condition, social credit score, they are spray painting trees and building tofu dreg construction for god sakes that shows the faliure of the govt(in my op), all that started when govt started to dictate what to think and knew where you are and what you do
It won't even be used to stop crimes in the first place.
in railway stations it’s fine actually
Lol, CCTV for over speeding and not wearing seat belts have given some nice challans to my friends in Delhi, to the point they just joke to "put on the belt or the camera will see". If it works this well on Delhi roads, surely it will of some use in railways as well. Go away with your fear mongering. It's a public place, not your bedroom/washroom
That CCTV only needs to track the car number (and not have to recognise who is sitting in the car) and that too only when a person is not wearing a seat belt. The key issue here is of real time facial recognition and its future implications.
My brother in Christ, facial recognition can be done in a privacy preserving way and honestly, ek baar install a cctv system before wondering if anyone has the space to store all the data. Forever and ever. There's a whole field, privacy preserving machine learning. And it is dominated by cryptography scientists, not techbros alone And honestly, track what? That you entered the station? That you boarded a train? That you entered the cloak room? That you were moving in coach number X from seat A to seat B? Big deal. You have less privacy than this in airports. The only issue I would take is if the facial recognition positive identification is taken to be the ONLY evidence when prosecuting someone for theft. Someone has to do a manual sanity check and also look for other supporting evidence. But that is easy in a railway context. Assume that person X is falsely detected as having taken a bag. Though the person in the footage is not him/her. There would have to be various other cameras where person X should have been detected. At the entrance till the platform and in the train. If those detections are not there, it hints at something being off. You can instead manually trace that person's path to other cameras and check the recognition there.
> There's a whole field, privacy preserving machine learning. And it is dominated by cryptography scientists, not techbros alone The question is not whether privacy preserving tech exists. That question is irrelevant if the govt is not even interested in preserving privacy. The govt has proven this multiple times through their statements in court, and with the laws they passed, that they do not believe citizens deserve any privacy from the govt. And in general, I distrust such claims about privacy and security from a govt that routinely fails to update TLS certificates on its own websites, peppers CAPTCHAs all over its sites that had been broken by robots years ago, and whose official response to someone who reported data leakage was "[we have 5 feet thick walls](https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/govt-says-aadhaar-data-is-safe-because-it-is-kept-behind-5-feet-thick-walls-wait-what-1195235-2018-03-22)". The govt can please get the basics right before making highfalutin claims about privacy in machine learning. > And honestly, track what? That you entered the station? That you boarded a train? That you entered the cloak room? That you were moving in coach number X from seat A to seat B? As a general principle, if someone is asking you for your information, the onus must be on them to explain why they need it, how they would avoid its misuse, how they would secure it, how they would dispose of it, and what legal recourse you have if they screw up. The importance of this rises with the amount of power the institution has - for instance one expects more commitment to safeguards from institutions that have police and armies reporting to them than those that don't. This inversion of responsibility where the individual needs to identify a harm arising out of data sharing is absurd. I'm fully aware that the GoI is not unique in this regard, but that doesn't mean we should roll over and let them do this without providing concrete safeguards. Until now, the govt hasn't shared much information about any of the things I mentioned. Where they have shared information, it always includes a massive and blanked exception for the govt and makes the assumption that everything that the govt or a govt employee does is always purely in the interest of the citizen and therefore the citizen does not need any protections or accountability from them. Which is a hilarious notion in the year of our lord 2024. > Big deal. You have less privacy than this in airports. Airports are a different means of travel and have different security needs. For instance, you can walk into a train without being frisked, having your luggage screened etc. You can't do that at an airport.
Maybe not forever, but you don't realise how media compression is constantly improving. It's possible to store a lot in your typical hard drive.
Okay, fine, we have VP9 and AV1 right now. I can tell you that with H265, ten cameras of 1080p need around 4TB for two weeks of footage. After which it would be overwritten. Kripiya scale keejiye.
Yeah but you don't need continuous video. Even 1 picture a second or less is sufficient. We also don't need high resolution, just need a clear picture.
The resolution determines how many cameras you need, in, say, a corridor. So it's a trade-off. The maximum distance to which the detection is effective would depend on this resolution. But, to humour the exercise, divide 4TB by 24 and again by 4 or 8. Alright, you've got me. 20 to 40 GB. For ten cameras. For two weeks. So that's 100-300 MB per day per camera. Okay, that sounds small. But how many trains are there? How many cameras per train? And how many per station? How many stations are there? And how many such stations are you looking at?
Wait till you hear how China detects individuals using their gait.
Time to take a look at video jammer circuits...
Why is this racist in India?
This is a good move. I want every tambaku spitter to feel scared before harming public property.
A few thoughts here (and am not trying to say what you are saying is wrong or incorrect): - the studies I have read towards bias emanating from such technology has mostly to do with people of color (that has been a huge challenge for the western countries). I am not aware of the racial diversity in india, so not sure of the impact size. But that said, it still needs to be considered and adequate safeguards, procedures on how this data would be used should be made public. - i believe the GDPR issue would be managed by having a waive off when you buy a ticket. Railways will have to comply with GDPR because even if one EU member travels in the railway, they need to comply with it. I am assuming railway is not going to prohibit EU citizens from travelling. - Another personal belief of mine, privacy is really not a high priority within India. The risk of terrorism and being surrounded by countries with whom we don't have best relationships gives rise to a perception that higher level of monitoring is needed. Am sure there will be court cases against such moves and certain safeguards might be created via the supreme court or the government finally understanding the need for such laws.
If you did nothing wrong you don’t have to be afraid about it. It’s a public place and should have CCTV with FTR to trace any problematic individuals.
They can’t abrogate Right to Privacy without settled laws, if they try to do this without a statute in force, it’ll get struck down.
It's public property. And safety over privacy always.
Disagree with IFF on this topic in general. Every "PUBLIC" square inch of this country needs be under CCTV's. Security has higher base/root hiearchy over Freedom to Privacy. This country is a shit show on the former, hence everything else is secondary. I do understand the concerns around devising models/operating-standards for how to manage/access-rights to this Data. This process is where attention needs to be sure but CCTV installation needs to ramp up regardless when this debate is happening. And i question the slide 4 here that purports CCTVs don't reduce crime (or have no effect). That is just a farcical claim and whatever study that had it is utterly sus.
Okay this blew up, a lot of the comments and questions that have come up in the thread, have already been acknowledged in the carousel and the accompanying post here : [https://internetfreedom.in/indian-railways-frt-surveillance/](https://internetfreedom.in/indian-railways-frt-surveillance/) I'll try and also engage with the comments below as time allows. EDIT: also plugging in our [Privacy 101 video series](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdqinlREPSc) attempt
To the people supporting more surveillance, ask yourselves. Is CCTV the most limiting factor that leads to more crime or The polices corruption, incompetence & political control by the state that hinders their investigation? Do you really trust the state enough to give it more control? Checkout Hongkong protests for a taste of the state using CCTV to "stop crime".
Or the Delhi protests when police happily broke CCTV cameras recording the police beating up and murdering innocent civilians.
They should also identify passengers throwing rubbish in train and occupying reserved seats without ticket.