
Six U.S. Cities Make the List of Most Surveilled Places in the World - emrosecoleman
https://www.routefifty.com/public-safety/2019/09/six-us-cities-make-list-most-surveilled-places-world/159983/
======
omarhaneef
My first thought was: how is NYC not on this list since it has cameras on
every block, and has for decades.

And then I saw this: "Atlanta was the only place in the U.S. to crack the top
ten, with 15.56 cameras per thousand residents."

So they are looking at cameras per 1000 residents. This seems like the wrong
way to count. If you point a camera at a block, you see everyone on that block
whether there is one person or 10.

They should compute it as percentage of public area that is under
surveillance, I think.

~~~
sweezyjeezy
Yeah, it also conflates private/publicly owned cameras. As someone who lives
in London, I think we get unfairly portrayed as a surveillance state, because
really the vast majority of cameras are inside shops and businesses, not on
the street, and not connected to any central databank. I personally don't find
cameras like these troubling. Once you get out of central London, most streets
don't have cameras on them.

~~~
Tomte
The one time I was in London fifteen years ago, it felt like 1984. I was
sitting in a bus and there were at least five or six TVs showing several
camera perspectives.

Including one directly at the back of my head, which showed some early signs
of balding.

It was the most unpleasant bus ride I have ever had. London is nuts.

~~~
kalleboo
It's the posters that creep me out

[http://www.adsavvy.org/wp-
content/uploads/2008/12/watchful_e...](http://www.adsavvy.org/wp-
content/uploads/2008/12/watchful_eyes.jpg)

[http://www.adsavvy.org/wp-
content/uploads/2008/12/creepcamz....](http://www.adsavvy.org/wp-
content/uploads/2008/12/creepcamz.jpg)

------
AJRF
Top 20

    
    
        1. Chongqing, China – 2,579,890 cameras for 15,354,067 people = 168.03 cameras per 1,000 people
        2. Shenzhen, China – 1,929,600 cameras for 12,128,721 people = 159.09 cameras per 1,000 people
        3. Shanghai, China – 2,985,984 cameras for 26,317,104 people = 113.46 cameras per 1,000 people
        4. Tianjin, China – 1,244,160 cameras for 13,396,402 people = 92.87 cameras per 1,000 people
        5. Ji’nan, China – 540,463 cameras for 7,321,200 people = 73.82 cameras per 1,000 people
        6. London, England (UK) – 627,707 cameras for 9,176,530 people = 68.40 cameras per 1,000 people
        7. Wuhan, China – 500,000 cameras for 8,266,273 people = 60.49 cameras per 1,000 people
        8. Guangzhou, China – 684,000 cameras for 12,967,862 people = 52.75 cameras per 1,000 people
        9. Beijing, China – 800,000 cameras for 20,035,455 people = 39.93 cameras per 1,000 people
        10. Atlanta, Georgia (US) – 7,800 cameras for 501,178 people = 15.56 cameras per 1,000 people
        11. Singapore – 86,000 cameras for 5,638,676 people = 15.25 cameras per 1,000 people
        12. Abu Dhabi, UAE – 20,000 cameras for 1,452,057 people = 13.77 cameras per 1,000 people
        13. Chicago, Illinois (US) – 35,000 cameras for 2,679,044 people = 13.06 cameras per 1,000 people
        14. Urumqi, China – 43,394 cameras for 3,500,000 people = 12.40 cameras per 1,000 people
        15. Sydney, Australia – 60,000 cameras for 4,859,432 people = 12.35 cameras per 1,000 people
        16. Baghdad, Iraq – 120,000 cameras for 9,760,000 people = 12.30 cameras per 1,000 people
        17. Dubai, UAE – 35,000 cameras for 2,883,079 people = 12.14 cameras per 1,000 people
        18. Moscow, Russia – 146,000 cameras for 12,476,171 people = 11.70 cameras per 1,000 people
        19. Berlin, Germany – 39,765 cameras for 3,556,792 people = 11.18 cameras per 1,000 people
        20. New Delhi, India – 179,000 cameras for 18,600,000 people = 9.62 cameras per 1,000 people

~~~
greggman2
There's a lot of comparing apples to oranges

3\. Shanghai, China – 2,985,984 cameras for 26,317,104 people = 113.46 cameras
per 1,000 people

76\. Tokyo, Japan - 24,500 cameras for 37,435,191 people = 0.65 cameras per
1,000 people

Well, first off what are we comparing? They list 26.3 million people for
Shanghai and 37.4 million for Tokyo. That's comparing the metropolitian area
of Tokyo (Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba) to just the city of Shangahi.
Shanghai's metropolitian area population is closer to 33 million.

If we change Tokyo to the city population (9.3m) which is what they used for
Shanghai then Tokyo jumps to position 40 at 2.66 cameras per 1000 people.

On top of that 24,500 seems awefully low for Tokyo. There are cameras
everywhere and have been since I first got here 21 years ago. I always found
it strange if the Japanese are so honest (perception may be different than
reality) then why do they need so many cameras? Of course I haven't counted,
just saying for a city so large and seeing the cameras stick out if you're
looking it feels low.

All of that is the long way of saying the data is highly suspect.

~~~
testplzignore
The original article - [https://www.comparitech.com/vpn-privacy/the-worlds-
most-surv...](https://www.comparitech.com/vpn-privacy/the-worlds-most-
surveilled-cities/) \- explains the source of the data.
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bKBFiVXNzrgtW95j66Tp...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bKBFiVXNzrgtW95j66Tpcj2OYmL-
Gj-mKxvVvEN8aI8/edit#gid=979494433) shows the source of the camera counts. The
population counts came from [http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-
cities/](http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/). Just the fact that
the counts came from two different places make this data pretty dubious.

A better methodology would be to do a physical audit. Have some people in each
city manually count the number of cameras over some area, then extrapolate
from there. This has the flaw of missing hidden or inaccessible cameras, but
at least would be consistent.

~~~
cameronbrown
> Have some people in each city manually count the number of cameras over some
> area, then extrapolate from there.

This assumes a uniform distribution where one isn't obvious. Some places are
bound to have more security than others.

~~~
cowpig
If you cut up the municipality into uniform sizes, and then randomly sample
from that to do your counts it should account for that problem I think.

~~~
greggman2
Is that true? I'd only guess there are more cameras in Times Square than
Wastingtion Square in NYC. I don't know how you would divide most cities into
areas of uniform camera coverage such that totaling one area is representative
of all other areas in that city. Most cities have several hot spots

------
mindcrime
Here's what I find interesting, and maybe slightly disturbing: there was a
time when if you took a highly techie focused site like this, and posted an
article on this topic, a significant portion of the responses would include
variations of: "how do we hack these things to disable them?" or "How can we
avoid being spotted on camera", or "How about we get together and start
physically destroying these things" or "Let's vote out the bums who allowed
this to happen", etc.

These days? All we get is pedantic quibbling over what counts as "surveilled",
and what's the most appropriate metric for calculating how surveilled a place
is.

I'm not sure exactly what that says about our society and culture, but I'm
pretty sure I don't like it.

~~~
swiley
There's no place in the world for that kind of person. Most of them have
probably given up in some way and new ones are rare.

~~~
nostrademons
Is that actually true? Or is it just that given their paranoia & interests,
posting about it on a public message board might not be a good idea?

------
gruez
The headline is slightly misleading without context on how big the list is.
Otherwise you could say

>Every major American city make the list of most surveilled places in the
world

with a list size of 500.

Anyways, the list seems the top offenders seems to be China (by far) and UK
(to an extent). No surprise there.

The list follows a power distribution, so the first few cities on the list are
significantly worse than the others. For example, Chongqing and Shenzhen (in
first and second place respectively) have around 160 cameras per 1000 people,
but Atlanta (first US city on the list, 10th place) only has 13.06 cameras.
Other western countries on the list are lower, but don't have much less
cameras. Sydney is at 15th place with 12.35 cameras and Berlin is at 19th
place with 11.18 cameras.

~~~
mcbits
It's not clear why the number of cameras in a city would fit a power law,
which usually arises from some kind of feedback effect. More cameras ->
something -> more cameras. Any ideas for what "something" is?

(Also... holy shit, that's a spammy site. Blocked.)

~~~
jbattle
An idea: Cameras are deployed for a few different purposes. The more discrete
functions you are trying to accomplish, the more cameras you need.

Example 1: Red light cameras. Only needed at specific intersections that have
particular characteristics (high speed? high volume? not sure). The
distribution of these probably maps more to physical space than population
itself as the spacing of red lights is relatively independent of population.

Example 2: Cameras that are aimed at crime suppression. These will be unevenly
distributed around a city depending on where crime happens. Looking at Chicago
I see particular neighborhoods heavily blanketed in cameras, others very very
sparsely. The distribution of this type of camera would be quite different
than traffic-control cameras.

Example 3: Population monitoring cameras. I honestly don't know why China has
so many cameras. Are these literally population surveillance cameras? These
might be evenly distributed around a city to maximize coverage.

Some of the power law distribution you see might be a result of different
cities applying cameras for 1, 2, 3, N different functions (each of which
requires a different number of cameras).

~~~
bpchaps
A few years back I was mugged in Chicago at a busy intersection very close to
a train station. Being the FOIA nerd I am, I submitted a FOIA request for the
footage of the spot I was mugged at. It came back saying that no footage
exists. Probing the investigator, I was told that the camera rotates randomly,
and wasn't pointed in my direction. It's very difficult for me to think of
Chicago's surveillance with any sort of charity, when they can't even do a
single major intersection.

Fun fact: Chicago's city hall has a retention period of zero days on its
cameras. Go figure.

~~~
marcosdumay
> Chicago's city hall has a retention period of zero days on its cameras.

Does it mean that they have people watching the camera, warning the street
police if they find anything, but do no recording?

~~~
bpchaps
That's my understanding, yes.

~~~
logfromblammo
Given that it's Chicago, my understanding would be that the officer handling
the FOIA request fed you a line, and they probably didn't even look at any
recorded video to see if the camera was pointed in the correct direction.

Did you do a follow up request for whatever that camera actually recorded
while you were getting mugged?

------
olivermarks
'Surveilled' by who is the bigger question, and what public access and rights
do we have around the data produced, and is it being fed to some sort of Stasi
style panopticon? It's remarkable to me the lack of public surveillance video
produced after major events - the Epstein NY 'suicide' is the latest example,
the 2017 UK London Bridge event another. (The latter had video from a mile
away filmed with 90's technology as the main news story). I feel we are very
overdue in the free world for legislation around citizen rights and access to
video, and licensing for any entity or people who want to install
surveillance, much like the recent drone FAA registration.

~~~
mytailorisrich
There are plenty of surveillance (and other) videos of the London Bridge
attack.

The question is rather why would they publicise videos of people being stabbed
to death or run over in HD gory details?

~~~
anigbrowl
Because people want to know what happened and how. Otherwise liberty,
accountability, and self-determination go out the window.

~~~
mytailorisrich
We are fully informed of what happened and how, including through detailed
accounts, not least because, under UK law, a public inquest took place.

But, as said, I don't see the point of publicising videos of people being
slaughtered.

~~~
anigbrowl
There are numerous examples of public inquiries failing to provide a full
picture of the truth which then came out many years later, eg in Northern
Ireland. There's a documentary running on the BBC right now about the Troubles
featuring lots of photographs and footage that were suppressed at the time.

I don't care whether you see the point; if I wish to investigate a matter of
public or historic interest, why should I be bound by _your_ preferences?

------
Hoasi
> Kenneth Johnson, police commander of the Englewood district in Chicago, said
> that residents shouldn’t be concerned about privacy because the cameras are
> out in the open in public places. “This isn’t a secret. This isn’t an
> Orwellian ‘Big Brother,’” he told the New York Times last year.

This quote tells us Kenneth Johnson either did not read Orwell's Nineteen
Eighty-Four or doesn't remember it well enough to talk about it.

------
asah
Per capita doesn't matter for cameras, you care about per area and arguably,
coverage/holes, since 10 cameras pointing at one location/direction is (often)
less informative than one well placed camera.

Indoors also matters a lot.

To this end, I'm really surprised that NYC doesn't make the list, given 9/11.

~~~
guerrilla
> per capita doesn't matter for cameras

You mean it may not matter. In practice, it is probably proportional to
cameras per area, so it would matter.

~~~
sieabahlpark
As he said you can have 10 cameras pointing at one thing and know less
information than one good placement...

If indoor cameras count in this statistic then that throws off what is being
watched, the people or the property for insurance purposes.

~~~
guerrilla
> As he said you can have

As I said, that's why it _may_ matter, not why it does.

------
mgraczyk
Since moving to San Francisco 5 years ago I have been attacked on the street 4
times and had property stolen from my home 3 times. In only 1 of these cases
was there a witnessing camera.

I think there is a very real tradeoff between safety and privacy, and I
personally feel like my city would be better off sacrificing privacy in favor
of more safety.

~~~
habosa
Agree. If you limit the allowed use-cases and have strict access and retention
policies this could be really helpful.

Of course it could be used for dumb shit like giving out jaywalking tickets
en-masse. And I'm not sure there's any existing agency I trust to draw the
line correctly.

------
shanecoin
Atlanta

Chicago

Washington D.C.

San Francisco

San Diego

Boston

~~~
AnimalMuppet
And that's kind of weird. I could see Washington having heavy surveillance,
for security. But Atlanta and San Diego? What's up with that?

~~~
rwmurrayVT
ATL is the fraud capital of the USA and they're really only counting the tiny
part of true Atlanta. San Diego has NBSD and several large shipyards in a
small area.

~~~
mullen
As a San Diego Native and Resident, the cameras are part of a city wide
project to put "Smart StreetLights" all around the City. They don't monitor
anything specific but are used to gather evidence for crimes. San Diego does
not actively monitor the videos from the camera.

[https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/story/201...](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/story/2019-09-14/san-
diego-is-fifth-most-surveilled-city-in-america-study-says)

Honestly, I am not against this but it does strike me a solution looking for a
problem.

------
dfc
I thought it was interesting to that the report said no correlation was found
between cameras and crime. But you dig a little deeper and it's "numbeo.com
survey responses about crime". It also doesn't seem like they compared crime
rates over time to see if the introduction of cameras did anything.

~~~
Nasrudith
Yeah - crime perception has to be the worst way to measure actual crime rates
- it is essentially asking to be fooled.

------
habosa
Sometimes I think about theoretically committing a crime. Just running it
through in my head. I feel like in every single situation I'd have to pull
some seriously Mission Impossible stuff not to get caught on some camera. I
realize most crimes are not thought through very rationally, but this feels
like a rational deterrent to crime.

So in that sense I don't mind cameras. What would bother me is:

a) Excessive video retention. It's useful in the short term as a form of
evidence but in the long term it's just creepy. b) Proactive video analysis
(rather than only reacting when something bad happens).

I guess with how cheap storage and compute are now, (a) and (b) are
inevitable. So I guess I land on the anti-camera side of things. But I know
that if a crime was ever committed against me I'd really hope there was video
footage!

~~~
sverige
The one time I was robbed at gunpoint, there was video of the guy at a nearby
gas station trying to use my cards. The cops said they got nothing useful from
the video. I suspect that a lot of cameras are fairly useless in that sense.

------
11thEarlOfMar
I'm curious if they are counting the cameras in cars. Each Tesla has 3+
cameras that actively record when in Sentry Mode. A Costco parking lot in
Silicon Valley will have a dozen parked at any given time. That's another 36+
cameras. I can easily imagine a police investigation requesting footage from
owners who may have had active recording during a crime.

The number of cameras will increase dramatically in this additional dimension,
particularly as other manufacturers start adding surveillance to their
vehicles.

~~~
jcims
Seems if they had a warrant they could ask Tesla to provide video from any car
in that area at that time.

------
elif
I live in Atlanta (most surveiled in America supposedly), and I have 2
contributions to this:

\- in general, per capita statistics are wonky for our city due to the
unconstrained sprawl. There is a huge portion of our population that uses
Atlanta daily but does not live here.

\- the cameras are almost entirely for traffic monitoring and preventing crime
in midtown/downtown.

Where most people actually live, there is not much in way of surveillance. I
am an ACLU member and feel constantly creeped out in London. Atlanta ain't it
tho

------
_iyig
I’d like to know how much recorded video sees human review. My impression is
that cities don’t have the budget to manually review footage unless a crime is
reported. I’d also be curious who has access to the recordings - if it were my
decision, there’d be a nuclear missle-style buddy system and chain of custody,
but I doubt it’s that secure in practice.

------
exabrial
All "blue" cities unsurprisingly. It would be incredibly positive if they
turned this around. The government is not the place for community action, your
homes, neighbours, streets, churches, farmers markets, local watering holes,
et all are.

------
merricksb
Related discussion from August about same report:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20737023](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20737023)

------
newsreview1
The ACLU is currently fighing several battles to keep law enforcement from
being able to access drivers license photos for facial recognition in crime
related matters. Interesting read. [https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-
technology/privacy-borders...](https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-
technology/privacy-borders-and-checkpoints/tsa-testing-face-recognition-
security)

------
isthispermanent
The popups on this site, good lord.

~~~
dsb5
the whole site was disgusting, I didn't even bother to read past 2 words of
the headline. There was a great rant on r/web_design - welcome to the
internet, no fun anymore.

------
Plough_Jogger
Chicago, Washington D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, and Boston

------
cryptozeus
Surprised to see Atlanta in the list. Why ?

------
JohnFen
Interesting. I guess I have a couple more cities to add to my "do not visit"
list.

------
Bostonian
If the surveillance leads to the prompt arrest of violent criminals, it may be
a good thing. I expect privacy in my home, not while on the sidewalk.

~~~
landcoctos
What if cameras follow you on every trip you make to/from your home. Are you
ok with a blotter on all your movements?

~~~
andreilys
Related: Surveillance Camera Man on Youtube who films people without their
permission in public -

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP5ZVPwP7bg&t=](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP5ZVPwP7bg&t=)

