New report lists Austin as the most surveilled big city in Texas
AUSTIN, Texas - Austin is the most surveilled big city in Texas, with approximately four CCTV cameras per 1,000 people, according to a report published by comparitech.com.
Paul Bischoff, editor of comparitech.com says the group of researchers initially sought to analyze the level of surveillance in the top 50 most populous cities in the United States, but they only found adequate data to analyze 39. Overall, Austin landed in the middle at number 20.
Dallas has about three cameras per 1,000 people and Houston has one camera per 1,000. San Antonio, the seventh most populated U.S. city was omitted due to lack of data, so was El Paso and Arlington.
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"These include any cameras that police or government services have access to. So, traffic cameras, police cameras, public transportation cameras, things like that," said Bischoff.
Bischoff says the number of cameras per 1,000 people in Austin is likely higher. Researchers were only able to access old data to determine how many cameras are on the city’s buses. "That figure is over ten years old, so we expect that there are probably more cameras on city buses now," he said.
Bischoff says the crime index does not correlate with the number of cameras in a city. The ranking did not include Ring doorbell cameras, though the report makes note of them. In Austin police can access Ring doorbell cameras with homeowner permission. Bischoff says police filed 15 requests for Ring doorbell footage -- a number he says is "average."