Who buys and controls the CCTV? Back to contents 14 In this report, ARTICLE 19 and Digital Rights Collective investigate how one particular component of smart cities in Myanmar – CCTVs – are procured. This is an important area of investigation for several reasons. First, CCTV cameras form the infrastructural backbone of a host of emerging technologies – including AI applications like facial and emotion recognition. The mission creep embedded in technical and policy design for CCTVs go from simply being installed cameras for ‘safety’, to being equipped to carry out remote biometric identification. Verification capabilities are normalised across policy documents but are rarely logistically understood. We focus on CCTV infrastructure generally, not just on one specific application like facial recognition or automated number plate recognition, as it is often technologies like traditional CCTVs which facilitate the easy transition to AI-based surveillance simply by layering on newer applications without adequate scrutiny. In this report, we trace how CCTVs as an infrastructural building block of smart cities, in particular, are installed in the first place and ask how they may evolve in the future. We analyse these developments through a human rights lens. We also provide a preliminary analysis of CCTV installation in three cities in Myanmar to help the reader understand these developments against the background of national priorities. Second, this research is published at a particularly unique juncture in Myanmar’s political reality: it began when the civilian-elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government was in power, and subsequently developed during and after the military coup in February 2021. There was an intensifying crackdown against protesters and activists in Myanmar after the military coup. As the new State Administrative Council formed after the coup, taking control of the country’s legislations, governance, infrastructure, and technology, concerns surrounding potential uses and impacts of smart cities’ infrastructure have evolved and become increasingly urgent. Images of authorities monitoring protest movements in traffic control centres were shared over social media.9 With the military authoring new legislations and taking control of infrastructure and technology, there are increasing indications that the existing smart cities’ infrastructure will be used to monitor people who are engaged in civic participation and exercising their rights to free expression.10