A Surveillance State

Dr N.C. Asthana

Panopticon (from the Greek word panoptes, meaning ‘all seeing’) refers to a system of control conceptualized by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the 18^th century. He had imagined that it would allow all prisoners of an institution to be observed by a single security guard, without the inmates being able to tell whether they are being watched.

In their misplaced enthusiasm and adolescent fascination with new technology, Hyderabad police are in the process of creating the classic, overly oppressive ‘police surveillance state’—a 21^st century Panopticon. Telangana uses the highest number of controversial Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) systems in India. According to Project Panoptic of the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), five out of the 32 FRT systems in the country are in Telangana. Since the police departments are flush with funds under programmes like police modernisation, Safe City, Smart City, and Nirbhaya Fund, etc. it would not be long before other states also jump into the fray.

Amnesty International has started a ‘Ban the Scan’ campaign against it. The IFF served a legal notice in June 2021 to stop using FRT. The police reportedly argued that it was to book people for lockdown violation! Now, in November, in response to a query on Twitter, the Sultan Bazar police officially replied that they were scanning ‘suspect persons’!

Earlier, they were also accused of randomly stopping people on the streets and looking into their WhatsApp chats, ostensibly to see if words like ganja figured anywhere. Those refusing to show the chats were menacingly sent to police stations. They were also accused of collecting fingerprints and photographs of people randomly, as part of something called Operation Chabutra.

The Sheer Illegality of It

From a legal point of view, the arguments of the Telangana police are simply absurd. There is no law which confers such powers on the police. Moreover, they are a clea