The ruling Trinamool in Bengal has questioned the Election Commission’s decision to use an artificial intelligence-based app for voters verification in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

“Now, EC says they will use an ‘AI app” during the SIR exercise in Bengal. As is typical there are zero details of who made this app and its functionality,” Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP Saket Gokhale said on Thursday.

“Who are the vendors and developers? Was the app audited for AI bias? Why is AI required for searching duplicate entries when existing PDF software can do it easily,” Saket said.

The EC had introduced the AI-based app to assist in identifying voters registered in multiple locations. The AI tool would analyse facial similarities across photographers in the voter database.

Dead voters apart, voters registered in multiple constituencies in different states, and in different polling booths in the same constituency have been flagged by different political parties.

The Lok Sabha’s leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi in his three detailed presentations on alleged “vote theft” had cited examples of the same person registered as voter in different constituencies.

The EC has denied the allegations made by Rahul.

The Bengal SIR process has been marred by controversies with several deaths of voters and Booth Level Officers (BLOs), technical problems, and protests by a section of the BLOs. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had objected to the process and demanded the exercise be halted in Bengal for now.

“Why is the EC hiding details of this “AI app”? What is the guarantee that this mystery app has not been developed by someone with BJP links? There is zero transparency in the SIR process which is being rushed in a very suspicious manner. Why is the EC not coming clean?” asked Saket.