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Cities Worldwide Spent Over $3 Billion Last Year To Peep On You (cnet.com)
The world market for security equipment in city surveillance surged past $3 billion last year and won't be slowing down anytime soon, a research report by IHS Markit said Wednesday. From a report: State capitals and major cities have been spurring rapid development of city surveillance market in recent years, mostly to help police forces maintain public safety and reduce crime, the researcher said. Demand has surged for video content analysis, like facial recognition, as well as for things like body-worn cameras and services for police officers. IHS Markit estimated the city surveillance market will grow at average annual rate of 14.6 percent from 2016 to 2021. China is the biggest market for security equipment in city surveillance, taking up a two-thirds share, and it will also be the first country to widely use facial recognition in city surveillance projects, according to the researcher. More than 10,000 smart cameras are expected to roll out in Shenzhen city this year.
The nature of government is such that you are being forced to pay for your own breach of privacy.
Governments like the communists in China don't seem to understand: The more cameras they install, the more actual criminals will improve at hiding, and the more the average citizen, minding their own business, is made miserable. Even if they implanted GPS, cameras, and microphones on everyone, cradle-to-grave, criminals will find ways to circumvent it all and do what they want to do anyway. Meanwhile, again, the average citizen has more and more of their basic human rights taken away, more and more of their privacy destroyed (until there is none), and the more and more miserable their existence becomes. When will they stop? When people start committing suicide en masse, because the Afterlife has to be better than the Hell they're living in? I feel sorry for the average Chinese citizen. Before too long, farm animals will be treated better than they are.
Terrible idea -- if it's public, anyone can archive it, bypassing data-protection regulations. Also, why should a husband be able to watch the street outside his wife's suspected lover's house 24/7? How about an employer watching the street outside your house to see if you were out partying late last night? People should have a safety valve -- the ability to do certain things and even tell lies without getting caught. We don't need a panopticon where our families, friends, employers, etc can keep us under a microscope all the time.
Public place or not, limits on retention in the absence of a violent crime in the area are in everyone's interest.
Middle ground: somewhere like Costa Rica. A neutral country can be much less worried about things like terrorism, and its economy can be a lot better due to lack of military spending waste.