Just read in the paper today that Shanghai plans to double the number of surveillance cameras in public places in the next five years to help improve police investigation, local authorities revealed yesterday.
The city will install about 50,000 more surveillance cameras over the next five years, mainly in squares, parks, underground spaces and also along roads - like they need more???? That will make over 100,000 CCTV cameras in the city. If I sneeze it will be caught on some camera somewhere.
The Shanghai Public Security Bureau said the large number of cameras will boost police investigation of criminal cases and help track suspects and hmmmm, I wonder who else? Maybe they will be used to catch all the guys and gals who hork on the street. It was illegal during expo but that was then - it's a whole different story now. Same for the guys who walk around in their PJ's. That too was against the law but seems I see more people every day shopping and going about their daily activities in their pajamas. Pretty weird.
Is it going to be cheap? The annual investment on the closed-circuit television is somewhere between 77 and 140 million dollars (US) by the time they are all installed. The city's docks, airports and railway stations will be fully covered by CCTV and probably our apartment complex if not already.
Though the large-scale installation of cameras is ostensibly for safety purposes, the newspaper quoted citizens who were worried about their privacy and freedom. I personally think this is one of the best understatements I've ever read since being here.
No comments:
Post a Comment