Privacy risk: Report says India among 75 nations with AI surveillance tools

Even as right to privacy has been declared a fundamental right, India does not have a personal data protection law yet.

BS : India is gradually opening up to the threat of mass surveillance and cyber snooping by the state as well as rogue actors, as modern technology makes its way into the country in a landscape of weak privacy laws.

A report by foreign policy think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) has said India is among 75 countries in the world with access to modern AI surveillance technology— putting it in the same list as China, Russia and Saudi Arabia. The study was published in September.

“Many governments in the Gulf, East Asia, and South/Central Asia are procuring advanced analytic systems, facial recognition cameras, and sophisticated monitoring capabilities,” said Steven Feldstein, a Carnegie Endowment fellow and the author of the report.

These systems are used to surveil citizens “to accomplish a range of policy objectives—some lawful, others that violate human rights, and many of which fall into a murky middle ground,” he said, without detailing their use in specific countries.

Governments in autocratic and semi-autocratic countries are more prone to abuse AI surveillance than governments in liberal democracies, the report noted. Some autocratic governments like those in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia are exploiting AI technology for mass surveillance, while others with dismal human rights records are using it to reinforce repression.

On the technology front, the capabilities are strong. Modern systems can create 360-degree profiles of citizens by stitching together data from street cameras, card transactions and social media profiles. These systems can snoop on private interactions on the smartphone and monitor real-time location of the target.

According to the report, the biggest supplier of AI surveillance solutions is China with Huawei being the biggest exporter.

India is still far from being a victim of mass state-sponsored snooping but concerns loom over some new-age technology systems being implemented.

To be sure, not all the technologies are used for illegitimate purposes —cameras on streets prevent traffic violations, while facial recognition entry-management systems are common-place at offices for their sheer ease. A lot of advanced tech is being deployed as part of the government’s Smart City project for sewer management to reducing traffic congestion.