Data on Government surveillance and enforcement camera deployment and consideration of cross-agency integration

Question:

Ms Valerie Lee: To ask the Senior Minister, Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs (a) how many surveillance and enforcement cameras are currently deployed by Government agencies for detecting offences; and (b) whether the Government has considered aggregating or integrating these camera networks, where operationally appropriate, to reduce duplication in hardware and vendor costs, minimise street clutter, and improve monitoring and enforcement efficiency across agencies.

Answer:

Mr K Shanmugam, Senior Minister, Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs:

1. The Government does not track the number of enforcement cameras deployed by all agencies. The Police have more than 100,000 Police Cameras (PolCam) deployed today and plan to deploy a total of over 200,000 cameras by the mid-2030s. These cameras will be deployed islandwide at various locations, such as public and private residential estates, locations of high footfall such as town centres, industrial estates, parks and transport nodes, among others.

2. There are existing avenues for Government agencies to leverage on each other's camera footage when the need arises and to exchange information on enforcement technologies to enhance overall enforcement outcomes. Enforcement agencies also jointly explore opportunities to consolidate sensor and camera infrastructure. For example, through the Lamppost-as-a-Platform (LaaP) project, which concluded in 2023, the Government tested the feasibility of using lampposts as shared mounting infrastructure for agency sensors, including cameras, to reduce duplication and improve cost-effectiveness. A large-scale roll-out was found to be impractical at the time, as newer options such as mobile sensor deployment better met agencies' operational needs at lower cost.