New Delhi is the World’s 20th Most Surveilled City: Study

Representational image of a CCTV camera. 

(Photo: iStock)

In a recent study by tech researchers Comparitech, New Delhi was ranked as the 20th most surveilled city in the world, in terms of closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras per 1000 persons.

Eight of the top ten most surveilled cities in the world are in China, according to the analysis. London and Atlanta are the only two non-Chinese cities in the top ten.

The most surveilled city in the world is Chongqing in China with 2,579,890 cameras for 15,354,067 people which translates to 168.03 cameras per 1,000 people.

Meanwhile, according to the study, New Delhi has 179,000 cameras for 18,600,000 people which equals 9.62 cameras per 1,000 people.

The statistic may be a bit hard to believe for some, but Comparitech claims their methodology is sound. They have taken figures from Indian news reports and the World Population Review.

You can find the sources for the figures of each city here.

The analysis also claims that there isn’t significant correlation between the number of CCTV cameras and crime rates. “More cameras doesn’t necessarily result in people feeling safer” it says.

(With inputs from Comparitech)