In less than a decade and with little opposition, Chicago has linked thousands of cameras in a network covering most of the city, creating the most extensive and sophisticated video surveillance system in the United States and one that is transforming what it means to be in public.
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The cameras are mounted on street poles and skyscrapers, aboard buses and in train tunnels in this Midwestern city, the third largest in the U.S. after New York and Los Angeles. Officials can watch video live at a sprawling emergency command center, police stations and even some police squad cars.
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I don’t think there is another city in the U.S. that has as an extensive and integrated camera network as Chicago has, said Michael Chertoff, the former Homeland Security secretary.
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New York has plenty of cameras, but about half of the 4,300 installed along the city’s subways don’t work. Other cities haven’t been able to link networks like Chicago. Baltimore, for example, doesn’t integrate school cameras with its emergency system and it can’t immediately send emergency dispatchers video from the camera nearest to a call like Chicago can.
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Even London — widely considered the world’s most closely watched city with an estimated 500,000 cameras — doesn’t incorporate private cameras in its system as Chicago does.
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While critics decry the network as the biggest of Big Brother invasions of privacy, most Chicago residents accept them as a fact of life in a city that has always had a powerful local government and police force.
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And authorities say the system helps them respond to emergencies in a way never before possible. A dispatcher can tell those racing to the scene how big a fire is or what a gunman looks like. If a package is left sitting next to a building for more than a few minutes, a camera can…