EU-Banned Surveillance Tech Finds a Second Life in India

At Howrah station, one of India’s busiest transport hubs, approximately 100 live-feed cameras scan crowds to cross-reference faces against a database of suspects and missing persons. This infrastructure is part of a broader expansion by Herta Security, which has deployed its software across Indian railway networks, city control rooms in Ahmedabad, and even high-security sites like Delhi’s prison complexes. While Herta maintains that its products align with European data-protection principles, the company acknowledges it cannot dictate how foreign authorities choose to utilize its tools.

The ethical friction is sharpened by the funding behind the hardware. Since 2020, Herta has secured over €3.3 million in EU research grants, including projects focused on crowd-behavior analysis and suspect identification—capabilities now prohibited within the EU under the 2025 AI Act. Legal scholars specializing in biometric law argue that these Indian deployments would be strictly illegal if implemented in Europe, where strict judicial oversight and narrow exceptions are required. Despite this, the systems in India operate with minimal public transparency or independent regulatory review.

Government officials have justified the rollout as a public safety measure, particularly following the 2012 Delhi bus gang rape. Much of the funding stems from the Nirbhaya Fund, originally intended for victim support and shelter networks. However, data indicates that nearly half of the fund has been redirected toward surveillance and policing. Critics, including human rights advocates and legal experts, contend that this massive investment in digital monitoring does little to address the root causes of violence, which predominantly occurs in private settings beyond the reach of the lens.