<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/28/indias-founding-values...> [...] Automated facial recognition systems have been used to identify and to exclude protesters, based on earlier protest videos taped by police. The software used was originally developed to trace missing children. It is now being deployed to act against individuals, thereby not merely preventing them from protesting but doing so without any establishment of guilt. This year, the government issued a tender for an automated facial recognition system on a nationwide basis, whose end date has been extended five times. This is despite the absence of any clear legal framework to guide the use of such technology. The tender explicitly notes the benefits of the technology for crime prevention but omits any reference to privacy or sensitisation. In parallel has come the deployment of drone technology to capture images of protesters. In response, the Internet Freedom Foundation, a not-for-profit advocacy group, petitioned India’s directorate general of civil aviation seeking an independent legal opinion on the legality of drones. IFF has pointed out that the DGCA’s guidelines appear to have been openly flouted for the purposes of surveillance. As in the case with facial recognition, there are no clear parameters on when miniaturised drones can be flown with video cameras and visual recognition software. The state is exercising great power, and great power without authority. These technological moves should raise alarm bells. India has the world’s largest biometric database, with few checks on information processing and data mining, and it recently tabled a personal data protection bill in parliament that does little to address non-consensual data profiling by the state. With communal identification and a hegemonic political configuration on the one hand, and with powerful technological instruments on the other, India stands at a curious junction. It faces a medieval politics being driven by the weapons of the future.