The Supreme Court of India has agreed to hear a petition against the use of facial recognition and other biometric surveillance tools used by police during protests.
Included in Delhi police’s surveillance arsenal are smart glasses.
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The following is a summary, with added content for context, of the article ‘Challenge to facial recognition at protests to be examined by Supreme Court of India’ published by Biometric Update on 13 August 2026.
The Supreme Court of India has agreed to hear a writ petition challenging the use of facial recognition technology and other biometric surveillance tools by police during public protests and has tagged the legal challenge to other matters such as recent demonstrations organised by the Cockroach Janta Party.
The Cockroach Janta Party is a student-led movement. The Party’s rise represents a challenge to the established regime of Prime Minister Narendra Modi amid fears that government surveillance of protests is rooted in real political crackdowns.
The petition, filed in July by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP from Kerala, identifies two private companies, Aditya Infotech Ltd. and Dimension NXG Pvt Ltd, as providers that supported police facial recognition deployments in Delhi; Aditya Infotech is noted for mapping faces, while Dimension NXG tracks vehicles.
Petitioners argue that the Delhi Police conducted “extensive biometric surveillance in a complete legal vacuum” by utilising automated live facial recognition via CCTV cameras, drones, and a mobile command and control vehicle.
The legal petition asserts that biometric data was collected without consent and stored by private firms, which the petitioners claim violates the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023.
Specific technologies cited in the petition include smart glasses for real-time facial recognition. “The petition highlighted the use of real-time facial recognition via the ‘Ikshana’ vehicle and ‘AjnaLens’ smart spectacles, along with fingerprint matching through the ‘Abhigyan’ mobile application,” the Deccan Herald said.
AjnaLens is an AI-powered smart glasses and Extended Reality (“XR”) hardware startup founded in 2014 at IIT Bombay. The company designs and manufactures XR headsets and smart glasses aimed at defence, enterprise and skilling sectors, focusing on augmenting human intelligence through mixed reality.
Delhi Police deployed AI-enabled smart glasses equipped with facial recognition and thermal imaging for the first time during the Republic Day 2026 celebrations in January.
Smart glasses being part of the Delhi police’s surveillance arsenal brings to mind concerns about Meta’s smart glasses being adopted by law enforcement in the United States.
“This month, two Florida sheriff’s offices purchased Meta smart glasses … [this case] demonstrates that consumer equipment capable of taking photographs, recording audio and video, and transmitting a wearer’s view can be acquired by law enforcement agencies with the rules governing its use disclosed unevenly from one office to another,” Biometric Update wrote.
Related: Smart glasses could be used to covertly collect and misuse personal data, The Exposé, 8 August 2026
Featured image taken from ‘Republic Day 2026 security gets a high-tech upgrade as Delhi Police use AI smart glasses to spot suspects instantly’, India.com, 23 January 2026
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