There are an estimated 770 million surveillance cameras installed around the world today, and 54% of those cameras are in China, according to a pared-down version of the report, which will soon be made widely available to the media, and to the public.

China is home to some of the world’s largest makers of video surveillance products, such as Hikvision, Huawei and Dahua. China’s push to export surveillance camera technology, including to the US and other Western democracies, has raised concerns over the risk of data being funneled back to Beijing and the growing influence of the Communist Party, experts have suggested.

China has built a vast surveillance state that utilizes cameras powered by facial recognition software, including cameras perched on streets, buildings and lamp posts that can recognize and identify individual faces. Chinese tech companies supply artificial intelligence surveillance technology to 63 countries — of those, 36 have signed onto China’s massive infrastructure project called the Belt and Road Initiative, according to a September report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank.

Some of these “smart city” projects are currently underway in countries like Germany, Spain, and France, according to analysis by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

While the Chinese government claims such is not the case, it is not far-fetched to believe that somehow, China will be able to retain the ability to access the feeds from everywhere it sells or provides cameras to. Which is something that everyone should be concerned about.

There was a popular song in the 1980s by a band named “Rockwell,” with a chorus that went:

“I always feel like somebody’s watching me

And I have no privacy (ooh ooh)

I always feel like somebody’s watching me

Who’s playing tricks on me”?

Never have the lyrics rung so true!

How do you feel about so many spy cameras around? Are they good for public safety, or an invasion of privacy?