Facial Recognition Technology And The Right To Privacy In India: A Constitutional And Regulatory Analysis
- IJLLR Journal
- Oct 3
- 2 min read
Sritrisha S, BBA LLB (Hons.), School of Excellence in Law, TNDALU.
ABSTRACT:
Ripe at the confluence of Indian State jurisprudential discourse lies the at once closed-presence and beleaguered occupant of the right to the individual, Privacy, now sewn to the relentless advance of Facial Recognition Technology (FRT). Whether deferred to the limb of a sovereign police, a municipal surveillance net, or an undisclosed vendor of removably authorised algorithms, the doctrinal stitch seems to unravel further as rolls, performs, and repositions the individual profile of every domestic dweller. The surveillance apparatus burgeons beyond the premises of ‘binomal consent’ or ‘security necessity’ as magnitudes of biometric detail relax into both vendor engine and State archive, fastening the broader tableau of data-handling, earlier drawn only from handwriting and testimony, to a permanence once accorded sacred relic. The pursuit offered here entwines what the law adroitly terms ‘intrinsic spin-offs’ of the jurisprudential oeuvre since 1950, obliges the text to process every dash of precedential script upon the digitised visage, and re-examines article sovereign lies re-constructed in such casually minted permanence of facial tiles.
This paper home in on the constitutional foundations of privacy as elaborated in the landmark judgment of Justice K.S. Puttaswamy vs. Union of India (2017), where the Supreme Court squarely held that the right to privacy is a fundamental right safeguarded by Article 21 of the Constitution. The ruling requires that any encroachment on privacy must be justified by a law that is just, fair and reasonable, underlining the necessity of strict safeguards when deploying intrusive technologies such as facial recognition. Notwithstanding this authoritative command, India now faces a complete legislative void on data protection one that is glaringly apparent when biometric data, and specifically facial-recognition systems, are concerned. The absence of binding and coherent legislation has created a regulatory vacuum, further complicated by the fragmented schema of the Information Technology Act, the narrow provisions of the Aadhaar Act, and various advisory frameworks that government bodies have offered on a non-mandatory basis.
Keywords: Face Recognition, technology, privacy, digital, fundamental rights, regulatory framework.
