“Eyes and Ears”: Surveillance in the Indian Smart City

• Published in: Handbook of Smart Cities pp. 1387 - 1417
• Main Authors: Purandare, Uttara, Parkar, Khaliq
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing
• Subjects: Data; Data justice; Data privacy; Indian smart cities; Privacy; Privacy laws; Smart city technology; Surveillance; Technocracy
• ISBN: 9783030696979; 3030696979
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-69698-6_60

This chapter discusses the centrality of digital technologies and data to the smart city. It studies India’s Smart Cities Mission, a policy that aims to transform 100 cities into smart cities. The chapter contextualizes India’s policy before the backdrop of smart cities in the Global South, a region which has not received the same attention as its Global North counterpart. It focuses on the potential of India’s smart cities to become massive surveillance systems, jeopardizing citizen rights and privacy. Using examples, this contribution discusses the various tools used to build a surveillance infrastructure – from the more innocuous free Wi-Fi kiosks to the more complex facial recognition systems. It goes on to discuss how these dangers are compounded due to the lack of legislations and unclear policy. The chapter details upcoming legislations, explains the lacunae, and demonstrates how its imbalance with digital technologies and data makes surveillance in Indian cities almost a foregone conclusion. Such a situation allows for state overreach as well as private sector profiteering, both at the expense of the citizen. The chapter concludes by underscoring the need for a data protection law that puts individual liberties at its center and for smart city policies that are based on a data rights and justice framework.