Independent researcher Srinivas Kodali has raised serious allegations against the Telangana government, stating that electoral roll photographs were misused to build and expand a facial recognition system known as the Real Time Digital Authentication of Identity (RTDAI). According to his letter to the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Telangana, the state obtained voter data during the Aadhaar-Voter ID linking exercise and applied it for AI-driven facial recognition. Initially introduced for pension verification, the RTDAI system was later deployed across various government departments, including transport and education, as well as during municipal elections for voter identification.

Kodali argued that such practices violate citizens’ privacy rights and the Representation of People’s Act, 1950. He submitted evidence through RTI documents, showing that photographs from the Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC) database were integrated into the system, despite the Supreme Court halting the controversial National Electoral Roll Purification – Authentication Programme (NERP-AP) in 2015. He also highlighted that large-scale voter deletions in Telangana during the 2018 Assembly polls and 2019 Lok Sabha elections were linked to these unauthorized data-sharing practices, which resulted in the disenfranchisement of lakhs of voters.

Calling the use of electoral roll data for such purposes “patently unlawful,” Kodali demanded that the Telangana CEO immediately cease data sharing with external agencies and conduct an audit to ensure deletion of voter photographs already misused. He further pressed the authorities to provide, within 15 days, a legal explanation for sharing electoral roll details with the state government. His complaint has amplified concerns at a time when the Election Commission is already under scrutiny over irregularities in voter rolls across several states.