IT & Industries Minister KTR shared his thoughts on ‘AI on the Street: Managing Trust in the Public Square’ at a panel discussion at World Economic Forum in Davos.

Speaking at the session, Minister KTR said, “Big challenge in using technologies like Facial Recognition coupled with AI, is for us to be able to gain citizens’ confidence that the Govt. is unbiased in their use of data & citizens are not surveilled unless they have been notified.”

Minister KTR also stated that the only way to be able to achieve this would be to first clearly identify the regulatory powers that each of the Government Organizations would require. “These powers must be given to them in a parliamentary and a fully transparent method,” Minister KTR said.

“Facial Recognition has reduced the dependency on physical resources and time taken to find criminals and missing people. With the right regulatory outreach, we can make it far easier for police and also support the citizens with their needs,” Minister KTR said.

Emphasizing making the process transparent, the Minister stated that every single step that the government will take to be able to use Facial Recognition needs to be shared with the public first before it is being used by the Government Organizations. This needs to be formally bestowed upon them following the rules of democracy.

Minister KTR stated that obtaining public confidence is very important. “The government understands the advantages that Facial Recognition provides in regulation and policing. The confidence that the public has in this system needs to be bolstered by optional systems that can expose them to the method and only then scale up.”

Talking about education within the government, the Minister said, “We need minds that are well-versed in AI, ML, Blockchain, Data Sciences and the risks that come with the use of the same. The data being used must be fully secured and the security must be verified.”

The other members of the panel discussion included Takayuki Morita, President, Chief Executive Officer, and Representative Director, NEC, Japan, Angie Nicole OD, Executive Director Ushahidi, South Africa, and Coen van Oostrom, CEO & Founder of Edge Tech.