The Hong Kong police are linking CCTV cameras
at malls across the city to its AI-enabled SmartView surveillance system, Secretary
for Security Chris Tang told TVB. Without naming the malls involved, Tang said
the police force was in the final stages of discussion with private shopping
centres, with an aim of bringing 60,000 cameras into the integrated police
system by 2028.
“[W]e see that in some places without CCTV,
members of the public do not want to visit because they are dangerous and
people fear becoming victims of crime,” Tang said in Cantonese. He added that
whether police will have access to a 24-hour live feed, or just the ability to
download data, would depend on the location’s crime risk. At crime hotspots,
“real-time monitoring might be needed,” Tang said.
SmartView is a government initiative to install
CCTV cameras across Hong Kong’s “public places with high crime rate and
pedestrian flow,” according to a 2026 legislative paper.
Tang said on Sunday that it may not be necessary to inform the public about new
cameras being linked to the police network since many malls already displayed
signs warning of recording.
Last October, it was
announced that the police camera network had been rolled out at public housing
estates. As part of SmartView’s second phase rollout between 2026 and 2028, the
government plans to add 20,000 surveillance cameras per year, including setting
up new ones and connecting private cameras and those from different government
departments to the police’s network. Authorities aim to add 6,500 surveillance
cameras from 2028 to 2031 as part of SmartView’s third phase.
In February, Commissioner of Police Joe Chow
said authorities planned to incorporate facial recognition functions into CCTV
cameras managed by the police “within this year.”
Last October, Police Operations Wing Senior Superintendent Leung Ming-leung
said that, so far, the surveillance system had aided in detecting more than 480
criminal cases and had led to the arrests of over 840 individuals. It has also
been used for crowd control and to assist authorities during typhoons.