Delhi Police Used AI Glasses at Republic Day

More than a dozen devices were linked to a database of about 65,000 people.

State of Surveillance Editorial Team

TL;DR:

  • Delhi Police distributed more than a dozen AI-enabled glasses for security around the January 26, 2026 Republic Day parade.[1]
  • The devices were linked to a database of about 65,000 people and could alert officers after a facial match.[1]
  • India has no dedicated law governing facial recognition, while broad state exemptions weaken the country's general data-protection rules.[2]

What Delhi Police Deployed

Delhi Police distributed more than a dozen AI-enabled glasses to officers working around Kartavya Path for the Republic Day parade. The devices used facial recognition linked to a police database of about 65,000 people.[1]

Additional Commissioner of Police Devesh Mahla said the system could compare a current face with an old photograph and generate an age-progressed likeness. The glasses also included thermal scanning that police said could help screen people carrying prohibited items.[1]

The glasses were one piece of a much larger security operation. More than 10,000 police personnel, along with paramilitary forces, commandos, and snipers, were assigned to the parade.[1]

The Legal Gap

India has no dedicated statute governing facial-recognition technology. A Software Freedom Law Center analysis says the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 contains broad exemptions for state processing tied to criminal investigations, public order, and national security.[2]

The same analysis found no mandatory testing, training, or ethical-impact requirements before agencies deploy these systems. It also warned that procurement documents often state accuracy targets without disclosing false-positive rates or demographic bias.[2]

India's Supreme Court recognized privacy as a fundamental right in 2017. Even so, the Atlantic Council warned that broad government access and weak institutional checks leave police use of facial recognition with limited oversight.[3]

A Wider Surveillance Buildout

Delhi Police had already announced a citywide surveillance system combining facial recognition, automatic number-plate recognition, predictive analytics, and feeds from more than 10,000 cameras. The plan aimed to monitor up to 1,000 feeds at once and return matches in under five seconds.[4]

Putting matching software on an officer's face changes the setting, not the underlying problem. A person in a crowd may never know a scan occurred, what database was searched, whether the match was correct, or how long the encounter record will be retained.

Sources

  1. News9: Delhi Police to Deploy AI-Enabled Glasses for Republic Day Security (January 22, 2026)
  2. Software Freedom Law Center India: Facial Recognition Surveillance Landscape in India
  3. Atlantic Council: India's Adoption of Facial Recognition Technology (April 10, 2020)
  4. BW Security World: Delhi Police Facial Recognition System Citywide Rollout (April 18, 2025)

Published: January 25, 2026