Locks and Security News: your weekly locks and security industry newsletter
17th April 2024 Issue no. 701
Your industry news - first
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London now has the 4th highest CCTV Camera density in the World
A new study of CCTV Cameras has ranked London 4th highest in the World for CCTV Camera density, with only Chennai (India), Hyderabad (India) and Harbin (China) having more CCTV Cameras per km2.
"We recently calculated that London has 691,000 CCTV Cameras, with the average Londoner being caught 300 times a day on CCTV - what we hadn't realised was where London ranked in the World - until now," explains James Ritchey from London CCTV Installer CCTV.co.uk. "It's fascinating stuff."
According to a study by VPN provider SurfShark, the cities with the highest CCTV camera density per km2 are:
1 Chennai, India (657 per km2)
2 Hyderabad, India (480 per km2)
3 Harbin, China (411 per km2)
4 London, England (399 per km2)
5 Xiamen, China (385 per km2)
6 Chengdu, China (350 per km2)
7 Taiyuan, China (319 per km2)
8 Delhi, India (289 per km2)
9 Kunming, China (281 per km2)
10 Beijing, China (278 per km2)
The big rise for London is not state surveillance, but the amount of CCTV systems and doorbell cameras being used by residents at home.
"Only 3.4% of the CCTV cameras in London are actually Government controlled - everything else is private, but the density, that's the interesting thing - there are a lot of cameras in a small area monitoring London", explains Ritchey.
Generally, there are 4 types of CCTV camera systems used in London:
- Local Authority/Council/Police CCTV camera monitoring systems
- Corporate and business CCTV Systems
- Home CCTV Systems
- Doorbell and wireless cameras
Freedom of Information requests uncover that cameras operated by Local Authorities, Police and London Transport total 23,708 - which is just 3.4% of the total number in London. The remainder of CCTV cameras are operated by private businesses and homeowners totally over 96% - a number which is ever increasing as the cost of technology decreases.
"London by it's nature is a compact city, however it's very interesting to see that our Capital is up there with cities in China and India in terms of camera density - we see this only increasing over the next 10 years", concludes James Ritchey.
6th January 2021