MP Moves Supreme Court Against Police Use Of Facial Recognition Technology & Biometric Surveillance At Protest Sites Gursimran Kaur Bakshi 28 July 2026 2:54 PM IST An Article 32 petition has been filed in the Supreme Court against the deployment of facial recognition technology(FRT) and allied biometric-surveillance measures by the Delhi police during the recent Jantar Mantar protest led by the Cockroach Janta Party. The petition has been filed by Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament, AA Rahim from Communist Party of India(M), Kerala, seeking a declaration that such indiscriminate biometric surveillance in peaceful assemblies is unconstitutional and should be restrained until the Parliament enacts a law validating it. The main grievance raised in the petition is that the Delhi police carried out surveillance in a complete legal vacuum. It has been argued that neither the Delhi Police standing orders governing protests, nor the Criminal Procedure(Identification) Act, 2022, authorises the biometric surveillance of persons in a civilian assembly. The petitioner has submitted that Delhi police carried out automated, algorithmic extraction and matching of the biometric identifiers of the protestors, and interlinking of such data with permanent national criminal databases. They have subjected the protestors, journalists and ordinary citizens to continuous and pervasive biometric surveillance through indiscriminate acquisition of video footage and photographs through CCTV cameras, drones, and a 'mobile command and control vehicle', as per the petitioner. The petitioner states that Delhi police's own RTI response confirms that they have never carried out a privacy impact assessment and that FRT is internally meant to be confined to tracing missing persons and identifying the dead. Relying on the Supreme Court's judgment on KS Puttaswamy v UOI(2017), which laid down the test of legality, legitimate aim and proportionality against the State's action, it says: "These objects are wholly unconnected with the policing of