Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) has said that Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP)’s announcement to use face recognition technology in the presidential elections is just a threat.

At a press conference on Monday, the ruling party’s parliamentary group leader Ahmed Nihan said that face recognition software does not exist and that MDP is only trying to influence the elections.

Nihan claimed that if such face recognition software exists, companies such as Android and Apple would buy it for millions of dollars and that if MDP had such technology, they would not hesitate to use it immediately.

Responding to MDP’s announcement that they would be using face recognition to check voters in queues at polling stations to reveal those trying to vote more than once, Nihan said that they are only trying to intimidate people and influence the vote.

While the senior ruling party lawmaker refuses to believe in its existence, face recognition technology is already in use in some Asian countries including Singapore and Malaysia which uses it to monitor public spaces.

MDP showed off capabilities of their face recognition software to the media at an event in Malaysia last Friday.