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India is trying to build the world’s biggest facial recognition system

ination online — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 11:22:01 +0000

In July, Bhuwan Ribhu received some very good news.

The child labor activist, who works for Indian NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan, had launched a pilot program 15 months prior to match a police database containing photos of all of India’s missing children with another one comprising shots of all the minors living in the country’s child care institutions.

He had just found out the results. “We were able to match 10,561 missing children with those living in institutions,” he told CNN. “They are currently in the process of being reunited with their families.” Most of them were victims of trafficking, forced to work in the fields, in garment factories or in brothels, according to Ribhu.

This momentous undertaking was made possible by facial recognition technology provided by New Delhi’s police. “There are over 300,000 missing children in India and over 100,000 living in institutions,” he explained. “We couldn’t possibly have matched them all manually.”

Locating thousands of missing children is just one of the challenges faced by India’s overstretched police force in a nation of 1.37 billion people.

India has just 144 police officers for every 100,000 citizens, compared to 318 per 100,000 citizens in the European Union. In recent years, authorities have turned to facial recognition technology to make up for the shortfall.

New Delhi’s law enforcement agencies adopted the technology in 2018, and it’s also being used to police large events and fight crime in a handful of other states, including Andhra Pradesh and Punjab.

But India’s government now has a much more ambitious plan. It wants to construct one of the world’s largest facial recognition systems. The project envisions a future in which police from across the country’s 29 states and seven union territories would have access to a single, centralized database.

National database

The daunting scope of the proposed network is laid out in a detailed 172-page document published by the National Crime Records Bureau, which requests bids from companies to build the project. Interested parties had until October 11 to submit their proposal.

Currently unnamed, the project would match images from the country’s growing network of CCTV cameras against a database encompassing mug shots of criminals, passport photos and images collected by agencies such as the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

The platform would also enable searches based on photos uploaded from newspapers, images sent in by the public or artist sketches of suspected criminals. It would also recognize faces on closed-circuit cameras and “generate alerts if a blacklist match is found,” according to the tender document.

Security forces would be equipped with hand-held mobile devices enabling them to capture a face in the field and search it instantly against the national database, through a dedicated app.

The new facial recognition platform “can play a very vital role in improving outcomes” when it comes to identifying criminals, missing persons and bodies, according to the document published by the National Crime Records Bureau. It will also help police forces “detect crime patterns” and aid in crime prevention, it adds.

India’s crime rate is high, particularly within the poor areas dotting urban centers. In 2016, there were 709.1 offenses per 100,000 people in 19 big cities, compared to the national average of 379.3, according to the most recent official figures.

A foreign company

It is not known how many companies have submitted bids to install India’s national facial recognition system, nor how long the government will take to consider their applications.

About 80 representatives of vendors took part in a pre-bid meeting, which took place in the National Crime Records Bureau’s Delhi office at the end of July, according to minutes of the meeting seen by CNN. They discussed how the national database would be integrated with local police platforms and whether it should be able to identify people who have had plastic surgery.

“To be eligible to bid, a company has to have completed at least three facial recognition projects globally,” explains Apar Gupta of the Internet Freedom Foundation, an NGO which has put forward a legal notice to cancel the call for bids. “This disqualifies most Indian companies.”

The successful bidder will most likely be a consortium made up of a foreign company and a local partner — another requirement featured is for at least one of the bidding parties to be based in India.

IBM (IBM), Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Accenture (ACN) have all shown interest, according to Sivarama Krishnan, who leads cybersecurity at PricewaterhouseCoopers India. CNN reached out to all three companies, but none of them were willing to comment.

Having a foreign company set up such a critical part of India’s security apparatus could raise “national security issues,” worries Gupta.

In 2018, a controversy erupted when Ajay Maken, an opposition politician in New Delhi, accused the local government of having awarded a contract, through an Indian company, to provide nearly half of the CCTV cameras it plans to install in the capital to Prama Hikvision, a joint venture between Chinese company Hikvision and Indian company Prama Technologies, citing the risk for espionage.

Ashish P. Dhakan, Prama Hikvision’s CEO, confirmed that the company was supplying more than 140,000 CCTV cameras to New Delhi and has started installing them earlier this year.

“There is no evidence anywhere in the world, including India, to indicate that Hikvision’s products are used for unauthorized collection of information,” he told CNN. Hikvision has never conducted, nor will it conduct, any espionage-related activities for any government in the world.”

It is not the company’s only project in India. In 2018, Hikvision completed a network of surveillance cameras and command and control centers in Deesa City, Gujarat, according to a press release. In early October, it inaugurated India’s largest CCTV factory near Mumbai, with more than 2,000 employees. It describes itself a “market leader” in India for video surveillance solutions.

Hikvision has come under increasing scrutiny in the United States. In early October, it was included on a blacklist of 28 Chinese companies and government offices essentially barred from buying US products or importing American technology over their alleged role in facilitating human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region.

‘Technologically challenging’

Experts doubt whether India can carry off such an ambitious project in such a short time. The system is expected to go live less than eight months after the contract is signed, according to the call for bids.

“A more realistic time frame would be 12 to 18 months,” says Krishnan, who describes the project as “technologically challenging.”

Creating the centralized platform will not be the hardest part. “India already has a national database with photos of all the criminals prosecuted in the country, which is regularly updated by law enforcement agencies in the states,” he explains. “It will just need to be linked up to the country’s CCTV system.” A pilot project carried out in New Delhi proved this was feasible, Krishnan says.

Blanketing the country with enough surveillance cameras — especially advanced ones equipped with facial recognition technology — will be a much bigger challenge, he believes. India lags behind other countries in terms of installed security cameras.

New Delhi has 10 CCTV cameras per 1,000 people, compared with 113 in Shanghai and 68 in London, according to data compiled by consumer website Comparitech. The figure is far lower in India’s rural areas, home to 66% of the country’s population.

“Many villages in the countryside don’t have a single surveillance camera,” says Krishnan.

But the country is catching up fast. New Delhi is about to have 330,000 new cameras installed, said the deputy chief minister of the capital, Manish Sisodia, in July as he kickstarted the process. The project has been touted as a way to improve women’s safety in India’s largest city, which in recent years has been the site of a number of high profile sexual attacks.

Facial recognition cameras were recently introduced in Bangalore airport and are being trialed in Hyderabad airport, according to Reuters. New Delhi airport also recently started using the technology to speed up security checks.

“A dozen of India’s largest cities are now pretty extensively covered, and 24 more are in the process of expanding their CCTV capabilities,” says Krishnan. He adds that most railway stations are now also equipped with surveillance cameras, and the government plans to have them all covered by 2021.

“This is meaningful in India: most citizens will at some point in their life walk through a railway station,” he said.

No legal safeguards

For privacy advocates, this is worrying. “India does not have a data protection law,” says Gupta. “It is also not planning to adopt a specific legal framework for the new facial recognition system, which means it will essentially be devoid of safeguards.”

He worries India’s facial recognition system could become a tool of social policing, used to punish petty offenses such as public littering or to control the whereabouts of ethnic minorities.

Further down the line, it might even be linked up to Aadhaar, India’s vast biometric database, which contains the personal details of 1.2 billion Indian citizens, enabling India to set up “a total, permanent surveillance state,” he adds.

CNN reached out to the National Crime Records Bureau but did not receive a response.

India has a history of privacy issues. In 2017, India’s Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling, decreeing that a right to privacy is part of the fundamental rights enshrined in the country’s constitution.

The ruling paved the way for the draft Personal Data Protection Bill, which was presented to government last year but hasn’t been introduced to Parliament yet.

Rights activists had argued that fingerprints and retinal scans collected under Aadhaar violated an individual’s right to privacy.

Their fears about an invasion of privacy appeared to be confirmed in early 2018 when Aadhaar suffered an alleged breach after reporters said they were able to buy access to citizens’ personal details for as little as $8.

Seeking to temper criticism of its prized new program, the government added new security measures. Later that year, in a separate ruling, the Supreme Court found the database did not violate the right to privacy.

The court did, however, introduce new restrictions on how Aadhaar information could be used, including measures preventing corporate bodies from demanding data.

Caught between the need to improve its policing outcomes and to protect its citizen’s privacy, India will be walking a tightrope when it comes to building its national facial recognition database.

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Alphabet scales back its smart city project in Toronto after backlash

ination online — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 11:18:47 +0000

Google’s parent companyhas scaled back its plans for developing a Toronto neighborhood to potentially get approval from local officialsfollowing a backlash that put the project’s future in doubt.

Waterfront Toronto, the government agency overseeing the development, announced Thursday that it has agreed to evaluate Alphabet’s plans after major concessions from the tech company, including a much smaller plot of land for the development and less control over data. The agreement keeps Alphabet’s project alive.

Alphabet’s goal to build a model neighborhood for the digital age has been controversial since it was announced in October 2017. Last year, Ontario’s auditor general saidthe process to select Alphabet was rushed. Several officials, including the head of Waterfront Toronto, have since resigned.

In June, Alphabet tried to win over Toronto with a 1,524-page plan detailing how the neighborhood would be designed and function.It described eco-friendly wood buildings as well asstreets designed for pedestrians, cyclists and self-driving cars. Critics objected to how much power Alphabet sought.

“They asked for too much land, too much control over data, and too much control over governance,” said Joe Cressy, a Toronto city councilman who sits on Waterfront Toronto’s board of directors. “These are significant changes that make taking the next step possible. Without them, we would have had a responsibility to say ‘no’.”

Alphabet’s development will be limited to 12 acres, rather than the 190 acres it described in its plan. Alphabet will not be the project’s lead developer, and there’s no guarantee that public transit will be extended to its site. Personal information collected in the development will be stored in Canada. Alphabet has also scrapped its plans for an urban data trust, a new and largely untested solution. It will comply with existing and future regulations.

“This project has been de-fanged,” tweeted Bianca Wylie, a Toronto activist and critic of the project.

Sidewalk Labs, the urban innovation subsidiary of Alphabet, said in a statement that it was pleased with Waterfront Toronto’s decision.

“We are working to demonstrate an inclusive neighbourhood here in Toronto where we can shorten commute times, make housing more affordable, create new jobs, and set a new standard for a healthier planet,” Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff said in a statement.

Hurdles still remain before Alphabet can break ground. There will be more public consultation, such as open forums to discuss the project, in early 2020. Waterfront Toronto will make its ultimate decision by the end of March.

“There is still much work to do,” said Stephen Diamond, Chair of the Waterfront Toronto board of directors. “Let me be clear: this is not a done deal.”

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New technology tackles London’s air pollution problem

ination online — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 11:15:59 +0000

Air pollution problems on the streets of London are nothing new, but some of the newest solutions to air pollution problems seem to be coming from Green Tomato Cars on the city streets.

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Ikea and the Queen of Sweden are designing homes for people with dementia

ination online — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 11:11:35 +0000

As Sweden’s population ages, the country faces a challenge: how can it maintain support for its citizens without breaking the bank?

Furniture giant Ikea has one idea.

The company is launching a new style of home for dementia patients through BoKlok, a joint venture with Swedish construction company Skanska that makes sustainable and affordable housing.

For the past three decades, the group has built more than 11,000 modular homes throughout Sweden, Finland and Norway using the Ikea model: strip out costs by producing large quantities of parts off-site. Lower income customers only pay what they can afford.

Now, with some modifications, the company thinks it can help people who struggle with memory loss tolive at home — saving the government money it would otherwise spend on care. It’s built the first customized homes just outside Stockholm.

Design tweaks include taking mirrors out of bathrooms and fitting kitchen appliances with old-fashioned knobs, rather than digital controls.

The developments also emphasize spending time outdoors, and will include “therapeutic” gardens and clubhouses for socializing. That could make it more appealing for a partner to move there, too.

“To take care of elderly people, that cost is exploding,” BoKlok CEO Jonas Spangenberg told CNN Business. “It’s much cheaper for society and the public to give them service back home.”

‘A growing problem’

From Japan to the United States, countries around the world are dealing with the effects of aging populations.

Sweden is no exception. By 2040, nearly one in four Swedes will be 65 years or older by 2040, in part because of the baby boom following World War II.

In a country like Sweden, where life expectancy is very high and most care for the elderly is government funded, that means a strain on spending and resources looms. One concern is the supply of affordable yet comfortable accommodations.

“We see a growing problem … that [people] are ending up in institutions where they do not want to end up,” Spangenberg said.

He continued: “If we can crack the code where you can continue to live at a home or an apartment that is more suitable for you, even with various syndromes, we believe we could do a … good thing for society.”

That’s the driving idea behind the company’s SilviaBo project. Its namesake, Queen Silvia of Sweden — whose mother suffered from Alzheimer’s — has been a partner from the beginning.

Before he died in 2018, Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad made a large donation to the project through the the queen’s foundation, which provides training on dementia care. She’s a member of the steering board, and has also been involved in the design process.

The Ikea model

BoKlok is in the early stages of launching SilviaBo in Sweden, its first market, and is starting to talk to local governments about land and zoning. Spangenberg said he expects progress in the next year.

So far, the company has built a small pilot with six apartments just outside Stockholm. Residents have not moved in yet due to an ongoing permit dispute with neighbors, but the company maintains a legal resolution is “on its way.”

The BoKlok approach to affordable housing has its roots in the Ikea way of thinking.

“BoKlok was designed the IKEA way: large volumes, low prices,” according to a Skanska blog post from 2011. “Industrialized production and large volumes — in other words, repetition — cut prices and save time in planning.”

The venture also controls its entire supply chain, including land acquisition, factory production, on-site construction, sales and marketing. This helps reduce costs.

SilviaBo homes have some key differences from traditional BoKlok builds, though the homes will operate under BoKlok’s “Left to Live” payment model, where residents are charged only what they can afford after taxes and living expenses.

“It’s still the same floor layout, but you need to understand how people with dementia react in certain situations,” Spangenberg said.

For example, there are no mirrors or dark-colored floors in the bathroom, which could scare or confuse residents.

SilviaBo also plans to offer a version of its home for people who are around 65-years-old and newly retired, with small adjustments and the option to easily add certain accessibility functions.

The pitch, according to Spangenberg: “Make that clever move now, before it’s too late.”

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‘Just Dunzo it.’ How Google’s favorite Indian startup is making city life easier

ination online — Sat, 07 Sep 2024 11:47:39 +0000

Life in India’s crowded and chaotic cities can be tough. An app backed by Google is promising to help with everyday tasks by asking “what would you like to Dunzo today?”

Dunzo offers to take care of your to-do list, picking up groceries, transporting packages or making a pharmacy run. The Bangalore-based company’s thousands of delivery drivers, identifiable by their bright green helmets with a lightning bolt logo, spend their days doing tasks that include picking up dry cleaning and delivering forgotten laptop chargers from homes to offices.

“Dunzo is like a browser on top of the real world, where you can transact, courier, and commute from one place to another without ever having to step into the real world,” founder and chief executive Kabeer Biswas told CNN Business. “Dunzo brings the city to you, no matter where, no matter what, no matter when,” he added.

Biswas came up with the idea when he moved to Bangalore — known as India’s Silicon Valley — in 2014 after selling his first startup in the northern tech hub of Gurgaon. Trying to find his way around a new city, he found himself wishing he could get “an extra pair of hands.”

He decided to start a group on WhatsApp, fulfilling many of the early requests himself like shopping for party supplies and helping get a car battery changed. Word spread quickly and as his phone got inundated with messages, he realized he needed to scale up.

With three co-founders, Biswas built a company that now does more than 2 million transactions a month across nine Indian cities including New Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Hyderabad. It’s even started a bike taxi service.

Dunzo charges customers based on the task and distance traveled, and says an average delivery costs less than a dollar. But the bulk of its revenue comes from the commissions 12,000 small businesses pay Dunzo to help them fulfill orders. Dunzo reported a 1.7 billion rupee ($23.5 million) loss in the last fiscal year. But operations in some cities are already “profitable or on the way to profitability,” it says.

“What worked for Dunzo was that it was the first of its kind in India, and perhaps the world, to do what it does, and the seamlessness with which it solved real problems,” Biswas said.

Two years ago, Google (GOOGL) came calling. The company participated in a $12.3 million fundraising round for Dunzo, its first direct investment in an Indian startup. Google (GOOGL) poured in more money last month, taking part in a $45 million round that reportedly valued Dunzo at $200 million. Dunzo declined to comment on its valuation.

Where Google has become synonymous with search, Dunzo is hoping to do the same with on-demand service in India. “Just Dunzo it” is becoming an increasingly common phrase as the app expands across the country’s biggest cities.

“With any brand that becomes a verb, it has to do with the emotional gratification that that brand provides with its product or service,” Biswas said. “Google simplified access to information, Uber made commuting more convenient, WhatsApp made communication easier and Dunzo has made getting things done faster,” he added.

Biswas has an ambitious vision for his app — he says the possibilities and potential uses are “limitless” — and he also has plans to expand. Dunzo aims to nearly triple the number of cities it operates in, targeting India’s top 25 in the next 18 months.

And what about going global? “Anything is possible.”

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