Will Hong Kong’s new AI ‘city brain’ really stop at traffic monitoring?

Something funny is happening to our lampposts. I first noticed this during a short walk down the road from our home estate, where one lamppost had sprouted a sort of growth on its side, and, further up, a cluster of cameras.

When first installed, this had a rather informal air. The growth on the side was secured with black plastic sheeting which looked suspiciously like a lot of duct tape. This has now been replaced and the whole effect is quite smart and efficient.

On the other hand, this seemed an odd place for a cluster of cameras. True there is a sort of road junction, but the road which joins Sui Wo Road at this point belongs to the Water Supplies Department and is blocked by a locked pole. In any case, it peters out after 400 yards or so into a mere footpath.

Having been alerted to streetlight oddities, I later realised that our local specimen was not the only one. Similar clusters on lampposts are dotted down Sui Wo Road. It is difficult to see any logic in the installation. Many of them are at the entrances to estates, but not all estates are so honoured. So, Shatin 33 has one, but Scenery Gardens has not. Sui Wo Estate Phase Two has one, but Phase One does not. Junctions seem to be favoured, but the one spot where traffic congestion is endemic, courtesy of the English Schools Foundation, is still naked.

Anyway, it now seems that this rather random distribution of electronic equipment is all part of a greater plan. According to the latest policy speech, Hong Kong is to be fitted with a “City Brain,” an organ found in most mainland cities and involving the technology du jour, artificial intelligence.

Government spokespeople hastened to assure us all that this would be a wonderful thing. As HKFP reported: “The platform promises to centralise real-time data from a variety of sources – CCTV cameras, tracking systems, smart sensors, government databases, social media and mobile apps – and then use this information to optimise traffic lights, waste management, and other aspects of urban governance.”

Citizens who wondered what the “other aspects of urban governance” might involve will not have been cheered by the next paragraph, which announced that the first department to be connected to the new brain would be the Security Bureau’s Emergency Monitoring and Support Centre. How nice.

Chief Secretary for Administration Eric Chan appeared at a press conference the day after the policy speech and addressed the understandable fears that, with the new brain in action, Big Brother would be watching us all the time.

The city brain “isn’t meant for surveillance,” said Chan, who is heading the task force overseeing the project, to be formed in the fourth quarter of 2026. “It’s just about monitoring traffic and urban conditions, not monitoring individuals, crime, or catching thieves,” he said.

I do not doubt that Mr Chan sincerely believes that to be true, but I don’t. In recent years, we have seen the weaponisation of a wide range of official powers, from sanitary inspection to tax collection, and their use – or abuse – to inflict a hard time on people and organisations which the government disapproves of.

The idea that the new brain will not be seized and exploited to “monitor individuals, crime or catch thieves” is, in this context, simply not credible. Indeed, the arrival of a new way of catching thieves should be welcomed.

But will it stop there?

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Type of Story: Opinion

Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data.

Tim Hamlett came to Hong Kong in 1980 to work for the Hong Kong Standard and has contributed to, or worked for, most of Hong Kong's English-language media outlets, notably as the editor of the Standard's award-winning investigative team, as a columnist in the SCMP and as a presenter of RTHK's Mediawatch. In 1988 he became a full-time journalism teacher. Since officially retiring nine years ago, he has concentrated on music, dance, blogging and a very time-consuming dog.