MyGate: Convenience or pervasive surveillance? A study of the app usage in a gated community in NCR'

• In Event: Data-led and Digital Policing: A Global Perspective

Abstract

In India, the phenomenon of ‘Resident welfare Associations’ (RWA) has unleashed 24X7 surveillance on the residents and workers of these associations. The latest in their armour is a management application called MyGate which offers a host of services to the RWA to manage and control both residents and workers who provide their services inside the complex. The foremost feature of the app is to record attendance of the workers, send notifications about entry and exit of workers, guests, cars, and delivery workers from the society and call out any untoward behaviour from them. MyGate carries a meta data on all residents regarding the number of workers they employ, their entry and exit from the residential complex, and the kinds of deliveries they call for. Similarly for the workers, it provides minute by minute detail of their whereabouts as they not only have to check in when they enter/exit the society but also when they enter or exit individual buildings in the society.

Without a data protection law and unbridled access for police everywhere, this is what I call as ‘lateral policing’, which shows the ways in which police are not just involved when a crime is committed but have become a constant in the lives of people. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a gated residential complex in the National Capital Region of Delhi, I argue that the design of the gated complex, and its use of apps such as MyGate, not only police everyday life of both residents and workers but also provide a ready store of data for the police to use at their own discretion.

Author

• Shivangi Narayan, Jawaharlal Nehru University