In February, Coda Story’s Megha Bahree covered how, in a bid to boost classroom discipline, Delhi was installing 150,000 cameras in government-run schools across the city. Now, a new report shows how surveillance camera numbers are exploding in cities across the world – and finds little correlation between the number of cameras and crime. 

The use of surveillance cameras is exploding in cities across the world, with China leading the pack, according to a new report. The top twenty most-surveilled cities are all in China, according to the findings, with the exception of London and Hyderabad, India. American cities, meanwhile, such as Atlanta, have fallen out of the top twenty since the report was conducted last year. 

The report, conducted by researchers at Comparitech, a UK-based pro-consumer tech website, examined the 150 most populated cities in the world and found that of the more than 770 million cameras installed in public spaces worldwide, more than half of them are in China. 

Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province in northern China, was the most closely-watched city in the world, with one camera for every ten people. Rapid innovations occurring in facial recognition now means that any CCTV image can be used in tandem with the technology.