The Delhi Police is in the process of equipping its beat cops and Police Control Room (PCR) vehicles with remote facial recognition systems. This way, both local cops and first responders will be able to scan people’s faces using remote devices and run them against Delhi Police’s databases, DCP (Operations and Communications) S.K. Singh told MediaNama. This won’t be Delhi Police’s first tryst with widespread use of facial recognition technology. It had earlier used the technology to screen crowds at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s December 2019 rally in Delhi. Union Home Minister Amit Shah had declared in Lok Sabha that the Delhi Police had used its facial recognition system to trace 1,100 people who had caused riots in Delhi in February. Delhi Police’s e-beat book app, used by beat cops, has already been equipped with facial recognition software and has led to a few arrests (more on that below). Singh, who is charge of the 112 helpline, said that the Delhi Police is looking to use the Mobile Data Terminal (MDT), that all PCR vehicles are equipped with, to scan suspects’ fingerprints and faces on the field. The 8-inch HP tablet is already equipped with fingerprint verification to take PCR personnel’s attendance. “Suppose you find a suspect, just take his finger, send it to the system, and it will tell whether he is registered in a case or not,” Singh explained. The Delhi Police wants to build on top of that and arm it with facial recognition technology (FRT) for…
