Macau expands facial recognition on surveillance system used in one-third of investigations

Macau’s police are using a public surveillance system frequently in criminal investigations, according to comments from the special administrative region’s Secretary for Security reported by Macau Business. The facial recognition portion of the system continues to expand, meanwhile.

Secretary Wong Sio Chak told the Legislative Assembly that the ‘Eyes in the Sky’ system, which includes at least 100 cameras on which a test of facial recognition and license plate reading technology has been completed, has been used in more than a third of recent criminal investigations. The public CCTV system helped to quickly resolve two homicide cases among them, according to the official.

There are now 1,620 cameras operating in the system, with the completion of the first four roll-out phases.

Further expansions of the surveillance system are planned for 2022 and 2023, and reach 2,600 cameras. Macau plans to have 4,200 public surveillance cameras installed by the end of 2028.

Macau’s border authorities are also planning to deploy ‘Eyes in the Sky’ cameras with facial recognition to prevent smuggling, Wong said.

The territory is also considering legislation to mandate the collection of biometric data from all visitors on arrival.

Article Topics

biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  cctv  |  criminal ID  |  facial recognition  |  license plate readers  |  Macau  |  police  |  video surveillance