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A Billion Surveillance Cameras Forecast To Be Watching Within Two Years (wsj.com) 40

As governments and companies invest more in security networks, hundreds of millions more surveillance cameras will be watching the world in 2021, mostly in China, according to a new report. From a report: The report, from industry researcher IHS Market, to be released Thursday, said the number of cameras used for surveillance would climb above 1 billion by the end of 2021. That would represent an almost 30% increase from the 770 million cameras today. China would continue to account for a little over half the total. Fast-growing, populous nations such as India, Brazil and Indonesia would also help drive growth in the sector, the report said. IHS analyst Oliver Philippou said government programs to implement widespread video surveillance to monitor the public would be the biggest catalyst for the growth in China. City surveillance also was driving demand elsewhere.
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A Billion Surveillance Cameras Forecast To Be Watching Within Two Years

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  • This is outrageous. Someone should do something.

    • Install more cameras! (To watch over the people abusing power by putting cameras everywhere.)
    • This is outrageous.

      Yes, outrageous indeed. There are about 8 billion people on the planet, and only 1 billion cameras to watch them. For a comparison, the former East German secret police, the Stasi, had about 1 spy for every 10 people. This includes the so-called "informal employees"; "informants".

      Someone should do something.

      For full coverage, everyone on the planet should be required to wear a body-cam at all times. Only then could we achieve whatever we are trying to achieve with all this surveillance.

      • Maybe people could carry mobile cameras around WITH them. That way we can have full coverage. Nah, that will never work. You could never convince people to carry around spy devices.

  • Now governments can deepfake anyone, as doing anything that anyone else did.
  • Billion Surveillance Cameras Forecast To Be Watching Within Two Years

    A billion seems a bit much just to keep tabs on me. A few dozen should suffice. Please just keep them out of the bathroom, neither you or I care to see that stuff.

  • by LostMyAccount ( 5587552 ) on Thursday December 05, 2019 @02:57PM (#59488532)

    It seems like in the future most people will have a job associated with maintaining video surveillance. Either manufacturing the technology behind it (cameras, storage, networking), installing it, repairing it, or monitoring it.

    • What a terrifying thought. A dystopia where the make-work is enslaving your own self.
      • I mean it's kind of the upshot of an overpopulated society where inequality and automation reign supreme.

        I figure the automation won't make everyone unemployed -- they'll try that, but the crime and chaos will be uncontrollable. So they'll just employee a big part of the population in the surveillance state, with enough lumpen proletariat left unemployed to justify the surveillance.

        I'm kind of kidding, but kind of not because I think we are headed to a weird subsistence economy where people really are stuc

        • That is an AI's job. With facial recognition, and linking them to mobile phone data, they know who is where when. China recently insisted upon photos for all mobile phone owners.

          An AI can also monitor body language pretty well, and notice who is talking to who. Not quite there yet, maybe another 5 years, and then quickly rolled out now that the cameras are in place.

          Voice recognition is already pretty good, so automated surveillance of every phone call made is now easily possible.

          Then that all goes into t

  • You might want to backspace a few times and correct that grammar. We are watching you.

  • I don't see a way to stop this. Cameras keep getting cheaper. In 20 years there are going to be cameras everywhere, nothing anyone does will be private or anonymous. The cams will all do gait analysis and facial recognition and everything everyone does will be documented. Many of the cameras will be privately owned, many will be government owned, and any attempt at regulation is doomed.

    Our society can choose to adapt to this. A lot of victimless crimes will need to be decriminalized or we're going to enter

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