Rajya Sabha MP moves Supreme Court against use of facial recognition technology at NEET protests

On July 28, 2026, Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament A.A. Rahim filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the use of facial recognition technology and mass surveillance by the Delhi Police during protests against the NEET-UG exam paper leaks. The petition, represented by advocate Subhash Chandran, requested a judicial declaration that the surveillance was unconstitutional.

Rahim argued that the deployment of facial recognition technology and other surveillance measures on peaceful protestors without valid legal grounds violated their right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution. The Delhi Police employed CCTV cameras, drones, mobile command and control vehicles, and hand-held devices to capture videos and photographs of the protesters.

The real-time processing of this data using the 'Ikshana' vehicle and 'AjnaLens' smart spectacles, along with the collection and matching of fingerprints through the National Crime Records Bureau's 'Abhigyan' mobile application against the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System, occurred without a valid law. Neither the Delhi Police's standing orders nor the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022 authorized such biometric surveillance during a lawful assembly.

The petition claimed that the surveillance was conducted in a complete legal vacuum, with no privacy impact assessment conducted and an unvalidated 80% similarity score considered a positive match.