500,000 surveillance cameras to oversee Chongqing, China
Whoa, Nelly -- this one's not going to sit well with a certain sect. While the Chinese city of Chongqing has been planning this initiative for some time, we're just now starting to understand the sheer magnitude of what'll be built over the next two to three years. Cisco and HP -- two names that are no doubt familiar to those reading this page -- are apparently in cahoots with the nation in a way that overshoots prior expectations by some amount. According to figures gathered by The Wall Street Journal, a whopping half-million surveillance cameras are being shipped over to keep watch across the city, with the awkwardly-named Peaceful Chongqing project giving the government unprecedented views of its citizens.
Critics are wondering why Cisco and HP aren't being held responsible for whatever China ends up doing with this equipment, but the loophole here is a fairly obvious one; while it's definitely not kosher for US firms to ship fingerprinting equipment to China, shipping everyday technology like cameras isn't taboo. Yet, anyway. As you'd expect, both Cisco and HP seem confident that it's not their responsibility to pay attention to what happens to the devices they ship, and if it's something you'd like to immerse yourself in, those links below are there to help.
