(Digital) Eyes On The Street

---

High-resolution cameras are no longer just fixtures of big cities—they're now tracking traffic in Melvisharam and monitoring wildlife near Coimbatore. While these systems promise better safety and quicker investigations, they also raise tough questions: Are they really reducing crime? With rising costs and privacy concerns, the expanding eye of surveillance in urban India demands more than just sharper lenses; it calls for sharper accountability.

Image: Sign in Tamil Nadu | BBC

Situated along the Chennai-Bengaluru Highway, Melvisharam has been an accident-prone area. Authorities have installed high-resolution cameras to enhance road safety, analyse road accidents, and prevent criminal activities.

This is among the many such uses of “Closed-Circuit Television” (CCTV) surveillance systems beyond major metropolises in India.

The “Status of Policing in India Report 2023” by advocacy group Common Cause found that 46% of respondents reported noticing surveillance coverage in midsized and small cities.

Minister for Handlooms & Textiles of Tamil Nadu R. Gandhi inaugurating the CCTV cameras & the centralized control room at Melvisharam. Ranipet’s Collector, S. Valarmathi & SP, D. V. Kiran Shruthi are also seen. Source: Melvisharam | The Hindu

Founder, Rakesh Jain (middle) with Team CitizenCOP. The “Citizen Eye” is a feature on the mobile app CitizenCOP that allows city residents who have CCTV cameras in their homes or businesses to give police access to the footage to help solve crimes. Source: CitizenCOP | Your Story

In Cuttack, locals have voluntarily installed CCTVs to integrate with the city’s police control system. Similarly, in Indore, residents are using the app CitizenCOP to share CCTV footage to aid crime investigations. Human-animal conflicts have been a recurring concern in forest fringe areas of Coimbatore, and to mitigate such risks, AI-based CCTVs have been installed to monitor elephant pathways.

In UP, ‘Operation Trinetra’ helped solve 295 crimes using CCTV surveillance. However, Indian cities with high rates of surveillance do not necessarily have lower crime indices, according to The Wire.

Despite having more CCTV cameras, Chennai (40.87) has a similar crime index score to Kochi (41.12), which has far fewer cameras. The maintenance cost of CCTV systems is another challenge. In Ahmedabad, the average annual operational cost is INR 10 crore, likely doubling after upgrades. For a maintenance contract of 3 years, it is going to cost Ahmedabad MC 53 crores.

Source: Correlation between the number of CCTV cameras per 1000 people & crime index in India | The Wire

A correlation between the number of CCTV cameras and the crime index for the cities of

• Ahmedabad

• Bangalore

• Chennai

• Delhi

• Hyderabad

• Indore

• Kochi

• Lucknow

• Mumbai

The exponential rise of surveillance and the associated risk of privacy violations are also concerning. The lack of clear guidelines for installing CCTV cameras in public places creates confusion and leaves room for potential misuse.

With the increasing accessibility to CCTV, incidents of data security breaches and the sale of footage for financial gain are on the rise. It is crucial for cities to ensure that CCTV surveillance serves public safety interests without infringing on personal privacy.

क्या आपके शहर के स्थानीय प्रशासन ने सार्वजनिक जगहों पर सीसीटीवी कैमरे लगाए हैं?

• हाँ
• नहीं

Has it resolved any security concerns in your city?