India: School surveillance prompts data protection concerns

At Adarsh Public School in Delhi, students start their morning by reciting multiplication tables and reading from textbooks, as principal Prashant Sahgal settles into his office chair.

All of this takes place under the watchful eye of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras. 

"Every room has a CCTV, every staircase has it, the gates have it," Sahgal tells DW. "Not that we boast about it, it is mandatory."

The government decided to start installing CCTV cameras in all classrooms in public schools to increase student safety in 2017, after a slew of reported crimes. According to the Press Trust of India, the government has expanded the project and will soon provide a CCTV live feed of students to parents through a password-protected portal. 

Last year, the education ministry also issued instructions to install cameras at gates and other vulnerable areas at schools in Delhi. Under the guidelines, 15 days of recorded footage should be accessible to school and state authorities if required.

Does surveillance equal safety?

Aprajita Gautam, the prresident of the Delhi Parents Association, said that many parents had been quick to accept large-scale monitoring.

"I can give you so many examples of crimes against children in schools," she told DW, citing a recent case when an 11-year-old girl in a government-run school was allegedly dragged into a toilet by two seniors and raped.

The presence of a camera acts as a detriment to would-be perpetrators "because they know the camera is watching," she said.

Sahgal said that surveillance footage had also helped solve cases of petty thievery and misplaced items at Adarsh Public School, and could even help with classroom behavioral issues.

"Teachers also feel empowered. It is an additional tool for them to regain their class dignity and decorum," he said. 

However, as thousands of students at public schools in Delhi are now under constant surveillance, there are privacy concerns over regarding the filming of minors.

In 2019, a student at Delhi's National Law University filed a plea with the Supreme Court of India, arguing that the mass installation of CCTV cameras violated minors' fundamental right to privacy.

"Providing a live feed to anyone with a user ID and password jeopardizes the safety and security of young girls... and shall directly give rise to incidents of stalking and voyeurism," the plea said.

"This data is prone to being hacked and poses a serious threat to the privacy and security of the children as well as the teachers," it added.

A major issue is that CCTV footage, while accessible by school authorities and parents, is often processed by third parties, such as servicing companies that ensure the technology is working properly.

In the case of Adarsh Public School, the live feed from the cameras can be viewed by anyone in the reception area where a 24-inch flatscreen shows what is happening in all of the classrooms. The recorded footage is stored just below the screen.

A principal at another large public school in Delhi told DW anonymously that while cameras in certain areas were important, he did not agree with putting cameras in every classroom.

"Too much surveillance will curb their spirit. They are growing children who need to feel free and know that we trust them," he said.

A 2010 study by the University of New England in Australia analyzed the potential effects of surveillance on the psychology of children.

"If surveillance is applied as a response to fear, rather than a more balanced response to any actual risks involved, then arguably both adults and children become reactive agents contributing to a cycle of suspicion and anxiety, robbing childhood of valuable opportunities to trust and to be trusted," the authors wrote.

No data safeguards?

Apar Gupta, executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), an Indian NGO, has argued that CCTV cameras could do more harm than good.

"It may lead to unauthorized access to CCTV footage of children in Delhi government schools, which may cause inconceivable and irreversible damage to them,” the IFF said in a letter to the chief minister of Delhi in July. 

Gautam from the Delhi Parents Association said her group opposed live streaming for one reason in particular: "It will create live stalkers."

Without data protection legislation to fall back on, it is difficult to say how surveillance footage of children will be used or abused, said IFF's Gupta.

"There is no safeguard," he pointed out.

In 2018, lawmakers introduced a personal data protection bill to regulate how data is collected, stored and shared. Many years and revisions later, the law has yet to be passed.

In 2017, the Indian Supreme Court made a landmark judgment recognizing privacy as a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution.

Gupta said that the surveillance of children in schools put this judgment to the test, adding that there had to be data and evidence to prove that CCTV cameras had reduced crime in schools.

The education ministry did not respond to DW's requests for comments on the security of CCTV footage in schools.

Edited by: Wesley Rahn