The Hong Kong Police Force will add a total of 4,000 sets of surveillance cameras across the city within two years to help detect and prevent crime, Commissioner of Police Joe Chow has said.
The force is expected to install 2,000 sets of CCTV cameras this year, with each set containing two to three cameras, and another 2,000 sets will be set up next year to further expand coverage, the police chief told pro-establishment newspaper Sing Tao.
In the Sing Tao interview, published on Sunday, he praised the effectiveness of the CCTV cameras in solving crimes.
As of the end of June, 351 cases had been solved with the help of surveillance cameras installed in public areas with high crime rates and heavy pedestrian traffic since April 2024, said Chow, who took the helm at the police force in April.
A total of 157 theft cases were resolved using the surveillance system, followed by 37 robbery cases and five murder cases, he added.
Chow did not provide a breakdown for the remaining cases.
The new CCTV cameras also contributed to a 4.2 per cent drop in street crimes, including car theft, pickpocketing, arson, robbery, wounding, and assault, he said.
The police are looking to integrate their surveillance camera system with those of various government departments and the MTR Corporation.
Secretary for Security Chris Tang said in July last year that the government planned to introduce artificial intelligence to identify faces in the thousands of new CCTV cameras the city would be setting up.
Chow echoed Tang’s remarks in the Sing Tao interview. The police force hopes to incorporate facial recognition and artificial intelligence into its surveillance camera system, he said, pointing to some overseas authorities that have used such technology to detect traffic accidents and automatically dispatch officers, rather than waiting for a report.
The Hong Kong Police Force “also hopes to move in this direction. As for how long it will take to implement, I hope we can speed up the process,” he said in Cantonese, adding that there would be “strict guidelines” in place to ensure the protection of personal privacy.
In December last year, local media reported that Senior Superintendent Leung Ming-leung told the Independent Police Complaints Council that the force had installed 612 sets of surveillance cameras. At the time, he said police aimed to have 7,000 sets in place by the end of 2027.
According to Comparitech, a UK-based cybersecurity and privacy research firm, cities in mainland China remain the most surveilled in the world. The firm estimated that China has around 700 million cameras for a population of approximately 1.42 billion.
That works out to about 494 cameras for every 1,000 people — or nearly one camera for every two individuals.
The 2025 report also highlighted growing surveillance in other countries and cities, naming India, South Korea, Singapore, London, New York, and Los Angeles as locations where monitoring practices are a “growing concern.”
