London (CNN Business) An Indian cafe chain popular for its chai drinks is under fire for using facial recognition software to bill its customers, with some taking to social media to express their anger at what they say is a loss of privacy.

Nikhil Pahwa , an internet activist and founder of Indian media watchdog MediaNama, criticized cafe chain Chaayos by tweeting a video on Wednesday apparently showing the facial recognition system in a store in Delhi.

A branch of Chaayos Chai Cafe in New Delhi

Pahwa told CNN on Friday: "The scan began on its own. I had to tell the cashier I'm not interested in this and he switched to a screen that asked for a phone number input. I declined that too."

. @Chaayos doing facial recognition instead of OTP. I took this video today.https://t.co/ecgOf56F2P



Issues:

1. No terms&conditions displayed

2. Consent isn't real when there's no opt out option

3. We don't know if chaayos will sell this data/gives itself the right to



More 👇 — Nikhil Pahwa , https://mstdn.social/@nixxin (@nixxin) November 20, 2019

Pahwa said he worries about the risks of companies like Chaayos having this data, which in his view has been collected without "proper consent."

He added: "Systems like this that collect such personal and sensitive data, it normalizes it and I'm really worried about that normalization."

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