China plans to put villages under surveillance

Press TV: Mon, 10 Aug 2009

With more than 2.75 million surveillance cameras installed across China, officials plan expansion of the system in rural areas.

The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) said in a statement on Monday that authorities were gradually extending the installation of surveillance cameras in rural communities to provide better public security.

According to the statement, surveillance systems would be linked to police stations, community police service posts and farmer security guards in rural areas to establish a wide-ranging security network, the official Xinahua news agency reported.

Roads, banks, stores and hospitals are the public domains that are widely monitored in China. There are currently more than 265,000 surveillance cameras in Beijing.

The ratio of cameras to people in China stands at one to 472,000, while in Britain, with more than 4.2 million surveillance cameras, the ratio is one camera per 14 people.