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Though it consistently ranks among the world’s safest big cities, police in the Asian financial hub say the new cameras are needed to fight crime – and have raised the possibility of equipping them with powerful facial recognition and artificial intelligence tools.

That’s sparked alarm among some experts who see it as taking Hong Kong one step closer to the pervasive surveillance systems of mainland China, warning of the technology’s repressive potential.

Hong Kong police had previously set a target of installing 2,000 new surveillance cameras this year, and potentially more than that each subsequent year. The force plans to eventually introduce facial recognition to these cameras, security chief Chris Tang told local media in July – adding that police could use AI in the future to track down suspects.

  • @[email protected]English
    22•1 month ago

    Looks like China’s got a pretty large lead, even relative to London.

    https://www.comparitech.com/vpn-privacy/the-worlds-most-surveilled-cities/

    The 10 most surveilled cities in the world – cameras per person

    Based on the number of cameras per 1,000 people, these cities are the top 10 most surveilled in the world:

    1. Cities of China* — 626m cameras to 1.43bn people = 439.07 cameras per 1,000 people

    2. Hyderabad, India — 900,000 cameras for 10,801,163 people = 83.32 cameras per 1,000 people

    3. Indore, India – 200,000 cameras per 3,302,077 people = 60.57 cameras per 1,000 people

    4. Delhi, India — 449,934 cameras for 22,547,000 people = 19.96 cameras per 1,000 people

    5. Singapore, Singapore — 109,072 cameras for 6,080,859 people = 17.94 cameras per 1,000 people

    6. Moscow, Russia — 214,000 cameras for 12,680,389 people = 16.88 cameras per 1,000 people

    7. Baghdad, Iraq — 120,000 cameras for 7,711,305 people = 15.56 cameras per 1,000 people

    8. Seoul, South Korea — 144,513 cameras for 9,988,049 people = 14.47 cameras per 1,000 people

    9. St. Petersburg, Russia — 75,000 cameras for 5,561,294 people = 13.49 cameras per 1,000 people

    10. London, England (UK) — 127,423 cameras for 9,648,110 people = 13.21 cameras per 1,000 people

    • @pycoraxEnglish
      5•1 month ago

      I wonder how this changes if you adjust it for land size instead. As someone living in Singapore, I’d be surprised if it wasn’t at least the top 3.

    • @InverseParallaxEnglish
      1•1 month ago

      The China one is worse, not everyone lives in cities.

      But damn they have so many cameras there.