Eyes of Mumbai: Increased surveillance vs privacy in the age of global terror

The sprawling web of CCTV cameras, aimed at keeping the city safe, will raise troubling questions about the citizen’s right to privacy

Mumbai has been a sitting duck for terrorists since 1993 when a series of bombs ravaged the city, killing more than 250 people. But, it was the widespread condemnation of a lax security apparatus, evident in the 26/11, 2008, attack that forced the state government to acknowledge the imperatives of surveillance. This Sunday, when over 4700 CCTV cameras trained their gaze from 1510 locations across the city, it was showcased as a significant measure to fortify the metro. 

At a time when surgical strikes at terror camps across the LoC has raised the spectre of war with Pakistan, the fear of Mumbai falling prey to yet another terror attack by non-state actors, perhaps deadlier than the 2008 carnage, is grounded in logic: to hurt the country’s financial capital is to strike at India’s nerve-centre. It is the easiest means to draw international attention — something that the terrorists have become particularly adept at. 

Compared to London, New York and Beijing, which have highly evolved systems in place, Mumbai’s surveillance network, which has only recently begun to take shape, is still at an experimental stage. At this point, the primary challenges will be to ensure smooth transmission, monitoring,  storage and security of data. The government, at least on paper, appears to be capable of handling it. The police force will also have to ensure quick action once the cameras reveal a crime in progress. Given that surveillance is a round-the-clock operation, the manpower-starved force will find it extremely difficult to minimise the response time. Such a system will also demand a close, coordinated approach involving all police stations — a key strategy in fighting regular crime or thwarting a terror attack. The initial response to the 26/11 strike was, to put it mildly, haphazard. 

But, with surveillance comes the attendant burning question of the citizen’s right to privacy. In the age of global terror, urban spaces are increasingly turning into battlefields. Governments across continents are steadfastly resorting to policing in blatant violation of civil rights under the pretext of fighting terror. Mass surveillance is now a dreaded term for societies that have yielded to the state-policy of fear-mongering. The blasts in Brussels and France have enabled authorities to imbue their actions with legitimacy. As snooping on an unprecedented scale unravels into a nightmare for ordinary, law-abiding people, terrorists are finding newer means to subvert existing security architectures. At the risk of sounding crude, this cat-and-mouse game is now assuming sinister proportions with democratic governments turning into regimes in their apparently single-minded pursuit of battling terror. 
If the Maharashtra government’s expensive CCTV project is truly a bulwark against crime in the city, which is also witness to rising incidence of violence against women and senior citizens, the scope for a debate shrinks rapidly. The myth of Mumbai being a safe city for women has long been busted. Since the city has expanded exponentially, the steep surge in population has made crime-fighting an intimidating task for the police. As harried cops go about their everyday job, there is very little incentive for them to routinely risk their lives in the line of duty. 

The CCTV culture in Indian cities is getting deeply entrenched. In the absence of laws governing the use of such cameras in public places, there is a strong possibility of misuse of video data. It’s unnerving to realise that our movements are being monitored and our lives prised open in the process. It is now contingent upon the Maharashtra government to allay the fears of its people who have willy-nilly come to terms with forgoing their right to privacy.