Delhi built a ‘safe’ surveillance city. It can now locate anyone in seconds

Your face caught on a camera, your vehicle number plate, a voter ID, a driving licence, even a police-clearance certificate—any of these can become part of a vast web of data that the police can search in Delhi.That matters especially now, as the capital sees mass protests and public demonstrations, raising questions around safety. surveillance, privacy and the right to dissent.The Ken's Pratap Vikram Singh spent a month investigating Delhi’s ₹857-crore Safe City Project, conceived in the name of women’s safety. Its mandate now extends far beyond that, to crime prevention, public-order surveillance and political and religious rallies.What exactly is Delhi building, who can access it, and what happens when a system designed to find criminals can find almost anyone? In this episode, host Snigdha Sharma reads Pratap’s report titled: Delhi’s mass surveillance: track 50 million faces, identify them in five secondsThis episode was edited by Arnav PrakashDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.