Balancing AI Innovation and Privacy: A Study of Facial Recognition Technologies under the DPDPA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31305/rrijm2025.v05.n01.004Keywords:
artificial intelligence, facial recognition, DPDPA, GDPRAbstract
The use of artificial intelligence facial recognition technologies poses qualitative challenges to privacy and data protection law, mainly for India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA). The relationship between AI, surveillance, technologies, and legal systems is analyzed, focusing on the ways AI-FRT systems conflict with and meet the terms with data minimization, consent, algorithmic accountability, and other operationalization of rights under the DPDPA. This study examines the effects of unregulated biometric data harvesting and opaque decision-making processes in AI systems, drawing on Foucault's (1975) panopticism, algorithmic bias critique and Zuboff's (2019) surveillance capitalism theory. The methodology of this paper entails a legal comparative analysis where India’s approach towards AI regulation is adjacent with other international data protection measures like the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the US AI Bill of Rights, and China’s Integrated Governance AI policies. The results expose shortfalls in India’s legal provisions on AI, especially regarding the transparency of algorithms, rectification of AI bias, and human Intervention in automated decision making. The study highlights the existence of core data protection rights enabled by the DPDPA, however there are no clear parameters on AI governance, fairness of algorithms, or automated profiling responsibility. It puts forward suggestions for policy action to enhance AI control, including the recommendations of clear AI laws, autonomous regulatory authorities, and provisions for users to lodge complaints against violations executed by artificial intelligence. Given the current pace of India’s expansion of AI-enabled surveillance systems, the establishment of a comprehensive regulation is indispensable to achieve balance between the promotion of innovation and the protection of human rights.
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