China's big surveillance push

Published 10 August 2011

In China’s latest push to keep tabs on its citizens, police in Beijing have ordered supermarkets and shopping malls throughout the city to install high-definition security cameras; the recent order comes as part of a broader expansion in monitoring technology which includes the addition of millions of surveillance cameras over the past five years and large increases in domestic security spending

In China’s latest push to keep tabs on its citizens, police in Beijing have orderedsupermarkets and shopping malls throughout the city to install high-definition security cameras.

The recent order comes as part of a broader expansion in monitoring technology which includes the addition of millions of surveillance cameras over the past five years and large increases in domestic security spending.

Bo Zhang, a senior research analyst at IMS Research, an electronics-focused consulting firm, estimates that more than ten million cameras were installed in China in 2010 alone at a cost of $680 million. This year total internal security spending is set to reach nearly $97 billion, more than the country’s official military budget. Security spending includes Internet censorship as well as projects like individual identity cards and neighborhood communities that monitor the activity of fellow residents.

Other countries like Britain and the United States have embraced surveillance cameras, but China’s camera network is set to far outpace other countries growing more than 20 percent annually from 2010 to 2014, more than double the rate of others, according to IMS Research.  Read more