Shamani Joshi reports:
Popular Indian tea cafe chain Chaayos is currently facing a lot of flak after customers called out the store for handing them their masala chai only after a device snapped a photo of their faces with their newly-introduced facial recognition technology. While they stressed this was done without their permission, they also claim they were not informed about what the photos would be used for and had no way to opt-out of it either.
On their part, Chaayos has been trying to justify the face-recognition device as a “convenience” that will allow customers to avoid the hassle of One Time Password (OTP) every time they make a transaction at the cafe.
Read more on Vice.com. Keep in mind that yours truly is being hassled in India by a business there — 1to1Help.net — that had a data leak and tried to get a court to bar me from reporting on it at all. I have ignored their injunction, obviously, but rather than trying to censor U.S. journalism, India would be better advised to come up with some actual privacy laws and standards that hold Indian entities accountable for actually respecting privacy and protecting personal and sensitive information.