Technology-driven policing (CCTV surveillance, centralised dashboards) can improve accountability but also raises concerns of privacy and effective utilisation. Comment.

The Supreme Court's 2020 ruling in Paramvir Singh Saini vs Baljit Singh made CCTV coverage of lock-ups, corridors and interrogation rooms mandatory, anchoring surveillance technology in the Article 21 protection against custodial torture [1]. Technology is thus a genuine accountability tool, but its value depends on privacy safeguards and on actual utilisation rather than mere installation.

How technology strengthens accountability

• Custodial oversight: audio-video recording with night vision creates an independent evidentiary record, reducing the victim's burden of proving custodial excess; the Court fixed responsibility for upkeep on the SHO and mandated State-level oversight committees to review footage [1].
• Institutional capacity: the MHA umbrella scheme Modernisation of Police Forces (MPF), with a ₹4,846 crore outlay for the sub-scheme assisting States and UTs (2021-22 to 2025-26), funds modern technology, communication equipment and police-station infrastructure [2][3].
• Centralised monitoring: dashboards enable real-time tracking of compliance across thousands of police stations, replacing episodic affidavit-based reporting.

Concerns of privacy and utilisation

• Privacy: continuous recording of complainants, witnesses and detainees creates sensitive personal data; the Puttaswamy privacy standard requires clear rules on retention, access and audit — largely absent in practice.
• Utilisation gap: the Court took suo motu notice in 2025 after reports of non-functional CCTV cameras in Udaipur police stations, showing that maintenance, power supply and storage are the real bottleneck [4].
• Federal-fiscal friction: police is a State subject, so the Centre acts only as funder; the Union informed the Court in August 2026 that a fresh umbrella modernisation proposal, covering infrastructure and human resources, still awaits in-principle approval from the Finance Ministry's Department of Expenditure [5].

Technology is an enabler of accountability, not a substitute for reform. Statutory data-protection rules on footage, assured maintenance funding, and timely inter-ministerial clearance must accompany hardware — paired with the Prakash Singh (2006) structural reforms, so that a modernised police force serves both the rule of law and citizens' dignity.