Data Privacy, AI-Driven Surveillance, And Rehabilitation In The Digital Era: Evolving Legal Standards For Protections And Reintegration In India
Gargi Singh & Dr. Utkarsh Verma
DOI:
Abstract
The digital era has fundamentally reshaped the interplay between data, privacy, and security within India’s criminal justice system. The growing deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning algorithms, big data analytics, facial recognition technology (FRT), and mass surveillance infrastructure by state law enforcement agencies has transformed both criminal investigation and the post-incarceration lives of offenders, raising acute questions of constitutional rights, statutory sufficiency, and human dignity. This paper critically examines the evolving legal standards governing data protection and surveillance in India, with particular focus on their implications for offender rehabilitation and social reintegration. Anchored in the constitutional jurisprudence of Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, this study argues that broad state exemptions, structural deficiencies in adjudicatory oversight, and the complete absence of a rehabilitative data protection framework collectively create a system of perpetual digital monitoring incompatible with the constitutional values of dignity, equality, and personal liberty. Drawing upon comparative analysis of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, the EU Artificial Intelligence Act, the United Kingdom’s Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, 1974, and international human rights instruments, the paper advocates for a rights-based legal architecture integrating data minimisation, purpose limitation, time-bound retention, judicial oversight, and the right to be forgotten as tools of reintegrative justice.
Keywords
Data Privacy, AI Surveillance, Facial Recognition Technology, Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023, Rehabilitation