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China in 2022: One Surveillance Camera for Every Two People

Chinese cities are perhaps the most closely monitored places in the world. It is predicted that, by 2022, on average every two people in the country will be covered by a surveillance camera. The city of Chongqing currently has 2.6 million monitoring devices, or an average of 168 cameras per thousand people, higher than any other city in the world.

China plans to finish installing a social credit system by 2020. Surveillance monitors are becoming a weapon for creating so-called “smart cities” and “efficient governments.” On the streets of Shanghai, when a traffic violation occurs, the camera will immediately capture and broadcast the faces of the offenders in public, to the surprise of many foreign tourists.

The South China Morning Post quoted the British research firm Comparitech, which stated that, in the ranking of most monitors allocated to each thousand people, eight cities in China made it to the top 10. The top 10 are Chongqing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Tianjin, Jinan, London (UK), Wuhan, Guangzhou, Beijing, and Atlanta (USA). Chongqing leads the world with 168.03 monitors per thousand people, followed by Shenzhen, with every thousand people covered by 159.09 cameras.

It is generally believed that China currently has about 200 million surveillance cameras. It is predicted that the number of cameras in China will grow by 213 percent by 2022 and reach 626 million. On average, about every two people will be within the sight of a camera.

Source: Central News Agency, August 20, 2019
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/firstnews/201908200039.aspx