The Telangana State Election Commission has decided to use face recognition mobile application in 10 polling stations of Kompally municipality in Medchal-Malkajgiri district in the coming elections on a pilot basis to strengthen its voter verification system.
The technology was aimed to reduce impersonation cases by applying the latest technologies of Artificial Intelligence and deep learning which were completely driven by the system developed by Telangana State Technology Services (TSTS) with full digital trail.
The Commission has, therefore, directed the district Collector to arrange one new 4G Android smart mobile phone (with dual SIM facility) with minimum specification of 2 GB RAM, 4 MP camera and appointment of one additional polling official of Assistant Polling Officer rank for each of the 10 polling stations.
Process explained
A circular of the Commission on Saturday said the mobile app will help in identifying and confirming the voters based on the photograph taken by the additional polling officer who will be in-charge of the mobile phone. He will first verify the identity proof of the voters and then take their photographs and upload them to the server using Face Recognition App installed in mobile phone so as to compare the same with the already available photographs of all voters of the concerned polling station.
The app will display the result of verification based on the match established with voters with an appropriate message. The system was not in lieu but an additional tool to the existing identification system comprising identification of voters by first polling officers, checking electoral rolls and Electors Photo Identity Cards or alternate documents and subject to satisfaction of polling agents.
No storing of data
The Commission warned that the photographs taken were not stored or used for any other purpose. They will be erased from the memories of the mobile phone and also the server of TSTS which is supposed to give an undertaking to the effect.
The entire transmission process was properly encrypted and the IDs were anonymised as it was a type of information sanitisation whose intent was privacy protection. It was the process of either encrypting or removing personally identifiable information from data sets so that the people whom the data described remained anonymous. The input files (encrypted live photo data) was deleted immediately after the purpose was fulfilled.
