HYDERABAD, INDIA (AP) – After a pair of extremist bombings rocked the south-central Indian city of Hyderabad in 2013, officials rushed to install 5,000 CCTV cameras to bolster security. Now there are nearly 700,000 in and around the metropolis.
The most striking symbol of the city’s rise as a surveillance hotspot is the gleaming new Command and Control Centre in the posh Banjara Hills neighbourhood. The 20-storey tower replaces a campus where swarms of officers already had access to 24-hour, real-time CCTV and cell phone tower data that geolocates reported crimes. The technology triggers any available camera in the area, pops up a mugshot database of criminals and can pair images with facial recognition software to scan CCTV footage for known criminals in the vicinity.
The Associated Press was given rare access to the operations earlier this year as part of an investigation into the proliferation of artificial intelligence tools used by law enforcement around the world. Police Commissioner C V Anand said the new command centre, inaugurated in August, encourages using technologies across government departments, not just police. It cost USD75 million, according to the Director General of the Telangana State Police Mahender Reddy.
Facial recognition and artificial intelligence have exploded in India in recent years, becoming key law enforcement tools for monitoring big gatherings.
Police aren’t just using technology to solve murders or catch armed robbers.
Hyderabad was among the first local police forces in India to use a mobile application to dole out traffic fines and take pictures of people flaunting mask mandates.
Officers also can use facial recognition software to scan pictures against a criminal database.
Police officers have access to an app, called TSCOP, on their smartphones and tablets that includes facial recognition scanning capabilities. The app also connects almost all police officers in the city to a host of government and emergency services.
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.
