Following the Meghalaya government’s announcement to use facial recognition technology in an app to verify pensioners, legal concerns have been raised by members of civil society.
In a blog post, Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), a digital liberties organisation, said that it has written to the Government of Meghalaya advocating against the use of the technology to verify pensioners.
Recently, the Meghalaya government, through a press release, said that the app was developed by the National Informatics Centre in collaboration with the State Finance Department. The app is said to use artificial intelligence to verify that pensioners are alive.
In response to this, Jade Jeremiah Lyngdoh, a law student from Shillong, approached IFF for support.
The IFF in its letter addressed to the Additional Chief Secretary, in-charge of Finance Rebecca V. Suchiang, details legal and technical concerns arising out of the use of the app, with a request that the Government of Meghalaya reconsiders the use of the app.
Among these concerns, the letter noted that the use of facial recognition involves collecting, processing, and storing biometric information which constitutes sensitive personal information. It may be recalled that the Puttaswamy judgement of the Supreme Court of India upheld the right to privacy.
Citing the Supreme Court, the IFF letter said that the principles upheld by the apex court must be complied with by the authorities even if the collection of data is voluntary.
Noting that the Meghalaya government’s app does not comply with any of the abovementioned principles and was rolled out without any law, the letter states that the State government was not empowered to process citizen’s data. Given the lack of a law, the letter states that citizens of Meghalaya would have no way to seek action against authorities in case their private data is misused.
In addition to legal concerns, the letter also raised concerns of inaccuracy of facial recognition technology. Reports referred to in the letter state that the error rate of facial recognition among homogenous groups was incredibly high, causing potential issues for the efficiency of the app in Meghalaya.
It may be recalled that on July 15, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma launched a mobile app that will offer pensioners a hassle-free interface with the pension disbursing authority to prove that they are alive. This app will give information about a pensioner’s life certificate using face recognition.
“The app will help a pensioner to submit his life certificate through his mobile phone and receive pension without moving out from his home.
The app is designed specifically to help the pensioners of the State to submit online the Life Certificate digitally using a smart-phone with an internet connection. The frequency of face verification will be once in six months or twice in a calendar year.
A chatbot called MEDA has also been incorporated in the app where the pensioners can ask queries and type the suggestions for improvement of the app which will be duly monitored.
