Hong Kong is accelerating toward a fully digitized surveillance state, announcing plans to install 60,000 AI-enabled CCTV cameras across the city by 2028—a fifteenfold increase over the existing network. The system, led by the police-run SmartView program, will deploy tens of thousands of new cameras in high-traffic and high-crime zones, equipped with advanced artificial intelligence tools capable of license plate reading, facial recognition, and real-time crowd tracking. Officials described the system’s next stage—cross-network suspect tracking—as something that will “naturally” follow once the infrastructure is in place. The initiative marks Hong Kong’s largest surveillance expansion since the imposition of the National Security Law, aligning the city more closely with the all-seeing, AI-driven monitoring already common throughout mainland China.

Authorities claim that the program will operate within privacy laws, noting that facial recognition and biometric features will remain dormant until legal clearances are secured. However, given the city’s tightening political climate, privacy advocates warn that these safeguards may prove little more than formality. With plans to add 20,000 cameras annually, all feeding into centralized cloud platforms capable of automated scanning and identification, Hong Kong is rapidly transforming into one of Asia’s most monitored cities. Once fully integrated, this system will allow for real-time behavioral analysis, movement tracking, and predictive policing—tools that extend far beyond public safety into the realm of total social control.

Hong Kong’s AI surveillance network is yet another piece of the global puzzle forming a digital panopticon—a world where freedom is traded for security and every action is observed, recorded, and analyzed. Scripture warns of a future system that will know, track, and control all who live under it (Revelation 13). What begins as “smart governance” or “crime prevention” is, in reality, the scaffolding of a coming beast system—one that will monitor not only movement but loyalty. As technology and tyranny merge, the world inches closer to the prophetic moment when surveillance becomes worship enforced by code and command.

SOURCE: Reclaim the Net