HONG KONG: Hong Kong plans to install tens of thousands of surveillance cameras with AI-powered facial recognition, the city’s security chief said on Friday, bringing it closer to China where authorities often monitor public spaces with cutting-edge technology.
The Chinese finance hub has already installed just shy of 4,000 closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras under a police crime fighting programme. That number will increase more than tenfold by 2028, up to a total of 60,000, according to documents submitted to the legislature.
Artificial intelligence is already being used to monitor crowds and read license plates, and that technology “will naturally be applied to people, such as tracking a criminal suspect”, Hong Kong’s security chief Chris Tang told lawmakers.