(TibetanReview.net, Apr06’26) – Following central government guidelines citing security and data privacy concerns, the government of Delhi is to replace over 140,000 Chinese-made CCTV cameras, reported economictimes.com Apr 2.
More than half of Delhi’s CCTV surveillance network comprises Chinese-origin cameras, prompting the state government to initiate a phased replacement, citing national security concerns, the report said.
It cited the city government’s Public Works Department (PWD) minister Parvesh Verma as saying Apr 1 that cameras sourced from Chinese firm Hikvision will be gradually removed and replaced across the city.
The report said Delhi had over 2.7 lakh CCTV cameras installed by the PWD, of which around 1.4 lakh set up over Sep 2020 to Nov are Chinese-made, while the remaining cameras installed over Jun 2025 to Mar 2026 in a second phase are from non-Chinese sources.
Meanwhile, the opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi has alleged Apr 4 that while the government recently banned the public use of Chinese CCTV cameras, “Yet, Chinese cameras remain installed inside government buildings. Banned Chinese apps are resurfacing under changed names. Foreign AI platforms are processing sensitive data.”
The PTI news agency Apr 5 cited the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha as saying that five years after acknowledging that the 10 lakh Chinese cameras used by the government posed risks regarding data transfer, “the government has still failed to disclose whether the cameras monitoring us today are secure or not.”
India’s Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Jitin Prasada has responded by saying the Government was conscious of the cybersecurity risks posed by digital technologies. “In last 12 years, numerous efforts have been made to strengthen India’s digital ecosystem,” he has said.
“The government has undertaken major reforms for strengthening the security of CCTV systems and notified the mandatory essential requirements required for CCTVs in the Indian market.”