The São Paulo City Council has announced plans to install 20,000 facial recognition cameras on city streets in an effort to combat crime. T
There’s potential for an additional 20,000 devices from private citizens and businesses to be incorporated.
The initiative will begin in the central region, prioritizing areas like schools, parks, and high-crime locations.
Once operational, the cameras will match recorded images to security databases.
If facial features match over 90% of those in the databases, the system will send an alert.
An oversight committee will first review these images and then, if necessary, forwarded to the police.
The city has addressed concerns about racial bias by confirming that these cameras cannot recognize skin color.
This comes after a prior tender, which included skin color tracking, was suspended following opposition from some council members and social organizations.
The winning consortium, comprising several Brazilian security firms, will receive R$9.8 million monthly (equivalent to about US$2 million) to manage the surveillance system.
Mayor Ricardo Nunes mentioned that camera systems have been instrumental in identifying criminals.
However, the “Smart Sampa” initiative has raised concerns about citizens’ privacy rights.
In response to these worries, Nunes assures a stringent control system to safeguard citizen data and states that law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear.
As of 2022, São Paulo recorded its lowest intentional homicide rate in two decades and is not among Brazil’s 50 most dangerous cities, as per the Brazilian Public Security Forum.