Digital Surveillance and Predictive Policing: A Rights-Based Analysis in India

Artificial Intelligence is the advent of the new tech; it’s a development in technology which uses algorithms to analyse the data fed to its system in milliseconds. The term predictive policing is not a new concept for law enforcement departments, since many decades the criminal records were used by the police personnel to predict hotspots of crime commission, policing, But, now after the birth of this technology, this method has now transformed into a new name, i.e. AI enabled predictive policing. Now, these tools are helping the law enforcement departments analyse a large number of datasets or criminal records to predict crime. But, in a country like India, which is still developing and is also experimenting with such technologies in such sensitive areas like law enforcement, proper implementation of such technologies becomes a must. Indian policing continues to operate under the colonial-era Police Act, 1861, supported by the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) and other laws. With growing technological innovations, police agencies increasingly seek AI tools to anticipate, prevent, and analyse crime for improved public safety.

The paper explores and examines how such tools that are being used by predictive policing can lead to reinforcement of societal biasness and targeting of marginalised communities which can also lead to reinforcing of historical biasness, ultimately leading to violation of rights guaranteed under the Constitution of India, as such tools have their own drawbacks and can lead to several human rights issues if used unregulated. Through different tables, data and flowcharts this study explains how AI driven tools work in the different countries and how it can be shaped to be used efficiently in the Indian democracy which would also protect the basic rights of the citizens along with technological advancement.