A World With a Billion Cameras Watching You Is Just Around the Corner
A
World With a Billion Cameras Watching You Is Just Around the Corner
Global numbers to grow
almost 30% as higher image quality allows better facial recognition
As governments and companies invest more in security networks,
hundreds of millions more surveillance cameras will be watching the world in
2021, mostly in China, according to a new report.
The report, from industry researcher IHS Markit, to be released
Thursday, said the number of cameras used for surveillance would climb above 1
billion by the end of 2021. That would represent an almost 30% increase from
the 770 million cameras today. China would continue to account for a little
over half the total.
Fast-growing, populous nations such as India, Brazil and
Indonesia would also help drive growth in the sector, the report said. The
number of surveillance cameras in the U.S. would grow to 85 million by 2021,
from 70 million last year, as American schools, malls and offices seek to
tighten security on their premises, IHS analyst Oliver Philippou said.
Mr. Philippou said government
programs to implement widespread video surveillance to monitor the public would
be the biggest catalyst for the growth in China. City surveillance also was
driving demand elsewhere.
The global security-camera industry has been energized by
breakthroughs in image quality and artificial intelligence. These allow better
and faster facial recognition and video analytics, which governments are using
to do everything from managing traffic to predicting crimes.
China leads the world in the rollout of this kind of technology.
It is home to the world’s largest camera makers, with its cameras on street
corners, along busy roads and in residential neighborhoods.
Chinese companies Hangzhou Hikvision
Digital Technology Co. Ltd. and Dahua Technology Co. are the biggest camera
manufacturers by far, accounting for almost 38% of total installations,
according to the report. But there are major non-Chinese names in the business
as well, including South Korean maker Hanwha Techwin, and Panasonic Corp. of
Japan.
Other countries are increasingly
adopting similar technologies, triggering debate on the implications and
regulations of the growth of surveillance cameras. In the U.S., cities such as
San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., have passed laws banning government agencies
from using facial-recognition technology.
Unlike in China, city surveillance in the U.S. is only a small
part of security-camera demand, forming just 3% of the total camera network in
2018, according to IHS data. Still, public monitoring is growing. Cities such
as Detroit, Washington, D.C., and Orlando are testing the use of
facial-recognition video feeds in policing and security, according to a report
earlier this year by Georgetown University’s Center on Privacy and Technology.
The U.S. rivals China in terms of security-camera penetration,
with one camera for every 4.6 people, not far from China’s one camera for 4.1
people.
“Coverage of the surveillance market has focused heavily on
China’s massive deployments of cameras and AI technology,” Mr. Philippou said.
“Future debate over mass surveillance is likely to concern America as much as
China.”
China’s efforts to build an
all-encompassing city surveillance network for
policing and stifling dissent in its restive Xinjiang region have come under
fire from human-rights activists and United Nations experts.
The U.S. House of Representatives
passed a bill on Tuesday requiring sanctions on
officials responsible for the widespread detention of Uighurs,
a Muslim minority group, in Xinjiang. China has said it would retaliate if the
U.S. pressed forward with the move.
Developing countries, including India, Brazil and Indonesia,
will overtake markets such as the U.K and Japan as the world’s largest markets
for security cameras as CCTV networks become more affordable, Mr. Philippou
said.
Indian authorities have proposed
security cameras and video analytics to help maintain law and order among its
1.3 billion people. The country’s National Crime Records Bureau in June said it
was soliciting bids for a first-ever centralized
facial-recognition system.
The system would “play a very vital role in improving outcomes
in the area of criminal identification and verification,” the government wrote
in a request for proposals.
The document said the system, which uses CCTV camera footage,
would be used mostly for identifying criminals and finding missing children.
The bidding process closes next month.
Critics worry that it could be misused by authorities who could
identify or find people by matching surveillance photos to photos in the
database. The Indian government says the biometrics system is secure and not
meant for monitoring people.
The Singapore police force has installed at least 80,000 cameras
in key public areas, and plans to install more. Many are so-called smart cameras
that are supposed to be capable of running video analytics to aid authorities
in the early detection of criminal and terrorist threats, the country’s
Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam said in April.
“Residents, do they respond by saying that my privacy is being
violated?” he said. “In Singapore, they respond by telling us that it gives
them an added measure of security.”
Write to Liza Lin
at Liza.Lin@wsj.com and Newley Purnell at newley.purnell@wsj.com
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