After two Islamist explosions shook the city of Hyderabad in south-central India in 2013, authorities hurried to instal 5,000 CCTV cameras to increase security. Nearly 700,000 people now live in and around the city.
The glittering new Command and Control Center in the affluent Banjara Hills neighbourhood is the most apparent indication of the city's transformation into a hub of monitoring. The campus where hordes of cops formerly had access to 24-hour, real-time CCTV and cell phone tower data that geolocates reported crimes has been replaced with the 20-story tower. The device activates any nearby cameras, displays a database of criminal mugshots, and can match photos with facial recognition software to search CCTV footage for nearby known criminals.
Earlier this year, the Associated Press was granted exclusive access to the activities as part of an investigation into the widespread use of artificial intelligence tools by law enforcement worldwide.
The new command centre, opened in August, encourages technology use across all government agencies, not just the police, according to Police Commissioner C V Anand. According to Mahender Reddy, director general of the Telangana State Police, it cost $75 million (about Rs. 620 crore).
In recent years, facial recognition and artificial intelligence have proliferated in India, where they are now essential law enforcement tools for observing large gatherings.
Technology isn't just being used by police to solve homicides and apprehend armed robbers. Hyderabad was one of the first municipal police agencies in India to issue traffic fines and capture images of persons who disobeyed mask laws using a smartphone application. In order to check images against a criminal database, officers can use employ facial recognition software. On their smartphones and tablets, police personnel have access to the TSCOP software, which has facial recognition scanning capabilities. Nearly all of the city's police officers can access a variety of emergency and governmental services thanks to the app.
Anand said photos of traffic violators and mask-mandate offenders are kept only long enough to be sure they aren't needed in court and are then expunged. He expressed surprise that any law-abiding citizen would object.
“If we need to control crime, we need to have surveillance,” he said.
However, there are still concerns about the accuracy, and a lawsuit has been launched to contest its legitimacy. A Hyderabad official scanned a female reporter's face in January to demonstrate how the facial recognition software functioned. It returned five potential matches to criminals in the state database in a matter of seconds. They were all men.
According to Anand, Hyderabad has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in technologies like patrol cars, CCTV cameras, facial recognition and geo-tracking software, and hundreds of facial recognition cameras. According to him, the investment has assisted the state in luring in more private and foreign capital, including Apple's development centre, which opened its doors in 2016, and a sizable Microsoft data centre, which was announced in March.
The glittering new Command and Control Center in the affluent Banjara Hills neighbourhood is the most apparent indication of the city's transformation into a hub of monitoring. The campus where hordes of cops formerly had access to 24-hour, real-time CCTV and cell phone tower data that geolocates reported crimes has been replaced with the 20-story tower. The device activates any nearby cameras, displays a database of criminal mugshots, and can match photos with facial recognition software to search CCTV footage for nearby known criminals.
Earlier this year, the Associated Press was granted exclusive access to the activities as part of an investigation into the widespread use of artificial intelligence tools by law enforcement worldwide.
The new command centre, opened in August, encourages technology use across all government agencies, not just the police, according to Police Commissioner C V Anand. According to Mahender Reddy, director general of the Telangana State Police, it cost $75 million (about Rs. 620 crore).
In recent years, facial recognition and artificial intelligence have proliferated in India, where they are now essential law enforcement tools for observing large gatherings.
Technology isn't just being used by police to solve homicides and apprehend armed robbers. Hyderabad was one of the first municipal police agencies in India to issue traffic fines and capture images of persons who disobeyed mask laws using a smartphone application. In order to check images against a criminal database, officers can use employ facial recognition software. On their smartphones and tablets, police personnel have access to the TSCOP software, which has facial recognition scanning capabilities. Nearly all of the city's police officers can access a variety of emergency and governmental services thanks to the app.
Anand said photos of traffic violators and mask-mandate offenders are kept only long enough to be sure they aren't needed in court and are then expunged. He expressed surprise that any law-abiding citizen would object.
“If we need to control crime, we need to have surveillance,” he said.
However, there are still concerns about the accuracy, and a lawsuit has been launched to contest its legitimacy. A Hyderabad official scanned a female reporter's face in January to demonstrate how the facial recognition software functioned. It returned five potential matches to criminals in the state database in a matter of seconds. They were all men.
When these companies decide to invest in a city, they first look at the law-and-order situation,” Anand said.
He credited technology for a rapid decrease in crime. Mugging for jewellery, for example, plunged from 1,033 incidents per year to less than 50 a year after cameras and other technologies were deployed, he said.
Hyderabad's trajectory is in line with the nation's. The country's National Crime Records Bureau is seeking to build what could be among the world's largest facial recognition systems.
Since taking office in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have capitalised on the development of surveillance technologies, building steadily on prior government initiatives. His signature initiative, Digital India, intends to modernise the nation's digital infrastructure so that information technology may be used to govern.
Through the use of drones, AI-enabled CCTV cameras, and facial recognition, the government has encouraged smart police. According to Apar Gupta, executive director of the New Delhi-based Internet Freedom Foundation, it is a plan that has gained support from both sides of the political spectrum and permeated states all over India.
People don't always fully comprehend it, but there is a lot of social and civic support for it as well, according to Gupta. They believe that technology is the solution when they see it.
He credited technology for a rapid decrease in crime. Mugging for jewellery, for example, plunged from 1,033 incidents per year to less than 50 a year after cameras and other technologies were deployed, he said.
Hyderabad's trajectory is in line with the nation's. The country's National Crime Records Bureau is seeking to build what could be among the world's largest facial recognition systems.
Since taking office in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have capitalised on the development of surveillance technologies, building steadily on prior government initiatives. His signature initiative, Digital India, intends to modernise the nation's digital infrastructure so that information technology may be used to govern.
Through the use of drones, AI-enabled CCTV cameras, and facial recognition, the government has encouraged smart police. According to Apar Gupta, executive director of the New Delhi-based Internet Freedom Foundation, it is a plan that has gained support from both sides of the political spectrum and permeated states all over India.
People don't always fully comprehend it, but there is a lot of social and civic support for it as well, according to Gupta. They believe that technology is the solution when they see it.
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