As Moscow goes high-tech, so does its surveillance system

Moscow is plowing billions of dollars into reinventing itself as a modern, tech-friendly European city, and its system of remote surveillance is also ballooning. Over the past six years, the city has contracted with telecommunications operators to install more than 130,000 cameras, many of them boasting high resolution, zoom and swivel functions, and an uplink to a centralized database accessed by 16,000 municipal, regional and federal officials, including 6,000 law enforcement officers.

I had come to see how Moscow’s pursuit of all things high-tech was playing into surveillance systems, and I wasn’t disappointed. Officials say the streamlined, centralized closed-circuit TV system serves a dual purpose and that it was originally conceived to improve municipal services rather than serve law enforcement. They also say that access to the camera feeds is carefully managed.