hankyoreh

The city with the world’s most public security cameras is the Chinese capital of Beijing, with 1.15 million installed, a new study finds. London, in the UK, came in third with over 620,000, while Delhi, in India, was fifth with 420,000. Seoul only had 40,000 cameras, ranking 44th.

A July 22 report in Comparitech, a British technology journal, found that 16 of the 20 cities with the most CCTV (closed-circuit television) cameras were in China. Along with Beijing, at the top of the list, Shanghai ranked second with more than a million cameras, while Taiyuan ranked fourth, with 465,000.

Other Chinese cities in the top 20 were Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Wuzi, Chongqing, Suzhou, Changsha, Harbin, Qingdao, Nanjing, and Wuhan.

Comparitech drew upon government reports, police websites, and news stories to calculate the number of CCTV cameras installed by government authorities in the 150 most populated cities in the world.

The 20 most surveilled cities in the world

In addition to London and Delhi, there were two other non-Chinese cities in the top 20, both Indian: Hyderabad (tied for 10th with 300,000 cameras) and Chennai (15th with 270,000 cameras).

The South Korean cities of Seoul and Busan were included in the survey, with Seoul ranking 44th, with 40,883 cameras, and Busan ranking 111th, with 780 cameras.

The city with the most cameras per capita was China’s Tiayuan. This city of 3.89 million people had 465,000 cameras, or 119.57 per 1,000 people. Wuxi, also in China, ranked second in this measure, with 92.14 cameras per 1,000 people, and London was third, with 67.47 cameras per 1,000 people.

In South Korea, Seoul ranked 53rd, with 4.1 cameras per 1,000 people, while Busan tied for 105th with 0.23 cameras per 1,000 people.

Comparitech reported that there was hardly any correlation between the number of security cameras and the crime rate. Despite being the two most surveilled cities in the world, Taiyuan and Wuxi had vastly different crime indices (0-100, with higher number representing more crime): 51.47 and 7.84.

London, the world’s third-most surveilled city, had a crime index of 52.56, while Qingdao, at eighth place on the list, had a much lower crime index, at 7.42. In short, crime occurs regardless of the per capita camera installation rate.

Since Comparitech’s study focused on security cameras operated by government authorities, its figures may not be comprehensive.

A different report by IHS Markit, an IT data providing firm, estimated that there was one security camera installed for every 4.1 Chinese citizens and one camera installed for every 4.6 Americans in 2018.

In South Korea, the camera tally increases considerably when the private sector is included. According to CCTV installation figures compiled by Statistics Korea in 2014, there were 785,000 cameras in Seoul and 271,000 in Busan, among 3.68 million around the country — amounting to one camera for every 13 people.

By Choi Hyun-june, staff reporter

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]