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Posted On: August 7, 2025
/Categorized In: Biometric Face Reader With Thermal Temperature Screening / Biometric Face Recognition / Facial Recognition
/Written By: Starlink
India’s digital boom is fuelling an explosive growth of facial recognition technology across the country. The tech is invaluable for applications such as security, law enforcement, and even marking attendance. But it has prompted big concerns about the right to privacy that is a basic right under the Indian Constitution.
Facial recognition is being increasingly used for attendance, due to the rapid evolution of the technology. The Indian legal system struggles to keep up with the nuances of facial recognition technology and the privacy implications accompanying it. The IT Act (2000) and Aadhaar Act (2016) do offer some contours for data protection; however, they do not cater to the peculiarities concerning the aspects of facial recognition. In this blog, we’ll talk about the legal and privacy issues concerning face recognition tech.
Tech heavy facial recognition takes the human out of the loop, which becomes a compliance issue under regulations. This lack may result in unmonitored mistakes, partial truths, or unjust outcomes.
Research has found that these systems tend to be biased and especially error-prone when they lack human oversight. This has led to cases of false arrests arising from unreliable technology, as well as gender determination error rates that are unacceptably high.
Unlike passwords, you cannot just reset your face to a new one if it gets leaked. Cases in the past have raised questions about whether and how individuals will be able to wipe their data in biometric attendance system after it has been collected, hoarded and distributed.
Deployment is often made without the explicit consent of individuals and, while surveillance itself is in most cases legal, there are virtually no laws in place to prevent abuses. In China, for example, it has been used for mass surveillance, including in public spaces and to track citizens’ movements.
Facial recognition implementations typically involved sharing biometric information with third party companies, which could be susceptible to unauthorized access, misuse or breach.
Facial recognition technology is regularly deployed and used without transparency and accountability.
The right to privacy is a fundamental right in India. The foundational structure of the privacy legislation concerning facial recognition technology is evolving, even after the Supreme Court of India declared the right to privacy as a fundamental right.
The use of facial recognition technology is a privacy issue, because it collects, processes and stores the biometric information that can be used to identify a person without that person consenting to the same.
The collection and processing of sensitive biometric data calls into question issues of data security and breaches. And when that information is in the wrong hands, it can be exploited for things like identity theft, fraud, and more.
The first and foremost thing is choosing reputed biometric attendance machines as they are more likely to implement robust data encryption, secure storage, and transmission protocols, reducing the risk of breaches. Trusted vendors comply with global security standards like ISO/IEC 27001 or GDPR. So individuals get greater confidence in privacy protection.
They offer ongoing firmware updates, security patches, and customer service — critical for responding to emerging threats or system bugs. Not just that, those devices offer better integration with existing HR, payroll, or ERP systems for smoother operations.
As facial recognition technology becomes increasingly embedded in attendance systems across India, it brings with it serious legal and privacy concerns. From lack of consent and data breaches to algorithmic bias and inadequate legal safeguards, these issues challenge the fundamental right to privacy guaranteed under the Indian Constitution. As a business, you can do the best thing by choosing reputed biometric attendance systems with face recognition.
