Hyderabad is 16th Most Surveilled City in The World

Hyderabad is 16th Most Surveilled City in The World

Telangana’s capital Hyderabad has found a place among the top 50 CCTV-surveilled cities in the world. According to a report published by the UK tech firm Comparitech, Hyderabad ranks 16th in the list and is the top-ranked Indian metropolis. With nearly 3 lakh CCTVs for a population of over one crore (2020 estimates), Hyderabad has 30 CCTVs per 1,000 people.

Chennai, ranked 21st overall, comes a close second in Indian surveilled cities, while Delhi is a distant third at 33rd.

However, Hyderabad may be gloating over a dubious honour.

Eighteen of the top 20 cities in the list are located in China, while third-ranked London is the only city situated outside of China apart from Hyderabad. In the top 50 rankings, 34 cities are in China, two – Moscow and St Petersburg – are in Russia, and Baghdad is located in strife-torn Iraq. All three countries have been classified as “authoritarian regimes” in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2019 Democracy Index.

Taiyuan in China is the most surveilled city, with over 4.6 lakh cameras keeping an eye on nearly 39 lakh people. This translates to around 120 CCTVs for 1,000 people – the highest ratio among the 50 cities.

China’s capital Beijing is ranked 5th while financial nerve-centre Shanghai comes 12th in the list. Notably, Wuhan, the reported epicentre of coronavirus, is ranked 23rd in the list and Urumqi, the capital of the restive Xinjiang province, is at 13th place.