Hong Kong police aim to install thousands of new CCTV cameras across the city, but the initiative has raised concerns among privacy advocates and experts.
The authorities intend to install 2,000 additional surveillance cameras this year and plan further expansion in future years despite criticism. Nevertheless, police will integrate facial recognition technology into these cameras with the potential use of AI in the future to help identify suspects, according to Security Chief Chris Tang announced in July.
Hong Kong’s reputation is known as one of the safest major cities in the world, but officials say the new cameras are essential to fighting crime and are considering equipping them with powerful facial recognition and artificial intelligence tools.
Police have drawn comparisons with other jurisdictions, including Western democracies, that use extensive surveillance systems. One example says Singapore uses 90,000 cameras, while the United Kingdom has more than seven million, according to Tang.
Experts, for their part, warn the political climate in Hong Kong, especially after the enactment of national security laws, differs significantly from other cases. After unprecedented and often violent anti-government protests rocked the city in 2019, local and central authorities introduced sweeping national security laws.
Hong Kong counts over 54,500 public CCTV cameras used by government agencies – about seven cameras per 1,000 people, according to estimates by British research firm Comparitech. That is roughly in line with New York and still well behind London, which has 13 cameras per 1,000 people, but well below mainland Chinese cities, which average about 440 cameras per 1,000 people.
