Who buys and controls the CCTV? Back to contents 40 Yangon Yangon already has cameras installed at 154 traffic junctions, as well as surveillance cameras around popular areas such as City Hall, Inya Lake, and ShweDagon Pagoda. Current information in the public domain does not identify whether these cameras are AI-enabled. The traffic control cameras project started in 2016 and cost MMK 2.5 billion (USD 1.3 million).73 The traffic control centre, based inside People’s Park, opened in May 2017. Police have access to cameras installed on traffic lights, and these cameras, along with other technology in the control centre, are largely Chinese.74 According to another media report quoting the Yangon Regional Government, the city has almost 3,000 cameras in over 1,000 locations.75 In June 2019, the NLD’s Yangon government publicly announced their plan to add 140 more surveillance CCTVs in Yangon’s most crowded township, Hlaing Thar Yar, where most internal migrants working in factories live. Since then, not much has been reported on Hlaing Thar Yar’s project or who was given the contract. In June 2020, Yangon Maritime Police called for open tenders for CCTVs and two monitoring control rooms for eight ports and nine bridges along the Yangon River. In July 2020, the Yangon Police Special Intelligence department also called for tenders to install CCTVs in nine territories within Yangon. In May 2020, Yangon Regional Government allowed Yangon Police Force to call open tenders for a project to install a control centre as well as CCTVs in seven locations across 26 miles on the Yangon–Mandalay Highway from the Hlegu Township in Yangon City up to the border between the Yangon Region and Bago Region. According to an investigative article, these projects were underway before the coup and the implementer had special access from the police chief to work on and finish the projects even during curfew hours after the coup.76 In December 2020, the Hmawbi City Development (Sipin/စည္ပင )္ called for tenders for CCTV installations for the Hmawbi Township in the Yangon Region. The local police in Hmawbi also have a control centre for CCTV.77 Tenders were granted to a company called FISCA which had close ties to the military and who had placed the cameras around ShweDagon Pagoda. FISCA sourced the equipment mainly from Huawei and Dahua.78 FISCA is a Singaporean company that has worked with previous military juntas. The FISCA branch in Myanmar was founded in 1997 by a Myanmar national.