Hyderabad voters give thumbs up to face-recognition tech

Residents of Kompally municipality on the outskirts of Hyderabad became the first electors in the country whose voter identity was authenticated by a facial recognition technology.

A real-time, mobile app-based verification system was put to test on Wednesday in the urban local body polls of Telangana. Out of the 7,961 polling stations, 10 polling stations in Kompally, a residential area north of Hyderabad, were marked for the pilot project by the election authorities.

Voters DH spoke to brushed aside privacy concerns and data misuse worries and welcomed the tech-enabled system as the way forward to weed out bogus voting.

“It is an excellent initiative,” exclaimed Sagar Pattewar, after exiting one polling booth in Ward No. 12. “This would make the recognition of genuine voters effortless, thus putting an end to fake voters.”

“Impersonation is a problem in spite of photo electoral rolls, photo ID cards and the presence of polling agents. An analysis of tendered votes recorded during previous local body elections revealed violations leading to re-polls. Many cases may have gone unnoticed as real voters may not have turned up or may not have demanded a tendered vote.

The gravity of the situation is appreciated if one considers absentee, shifted and duplicate voters,” TSEC officials said.

Officials explained that a negative return on the app would not deny the voting right, unless corroborated by the existing identification systems.

“Since my picture taken on the mobile app tallied with the voter list data, they did not insist on checking my voter ID card. As my mother-in-law’s photo did not, the officials verified her voter ID card and allowed her to vote,” said Anupama (35), a homemaker.

TSEC also clarified that input files (encrypted live photo data) are deleted immediately after their purpose is fulfilled. However, AIMIM raised objections to the tech use, citing right to privacy.

“Have voters consented to being recorded when they enter a polling booth? What law permits the use of this technology? Are there any safeguards against breaches/misuse of the data? Right to privacy is a fundamental right and it cannot be violated so brazenly,” AIMIM chief Asadudddin Owaisi tweeted.

“I cannot comment now on what some parties opined. FRT was very much used today on a pilot basis,” Ashok Kumar, secretary, TSEC told DH.

AIMIM had made a representation to the commission “that facial recognition app should not be used as per guidelines laid down by the apex court”.

Voters in Kompally allay these fears. “If someone wants he can extract the voters list from the commission websites etc. True, technology is a double-edged sword but I see more positives here than negatives,” says Pattewar, an IT professional working with a renowned firm.

The techie hopes that FRT, if implemented, frees voters from carrying identity cards to the polling stations.

Srihari Gadiraju (37), who is into a marketing business, says, “FRT would spontaneously exclude fake voters, thus helping conduct a true democratic exercise. We welcome this move.”

While most of the 695 voters in polling station 23 in ward no 12 of Kompally seemed to have no objection to FRT, some complained about the additional time they had to stand in the queue.

“Since the tech is new and as the servers may be slow, it took a few minutes for my photo to be verified,” one voter said, terming it as minor discomfort.