KUALA LUMPUR: The Home Ministry plans to establish a national database of closed-circuit television cameras (CCTVs) for crime prevention and to aid police investigation.
Deputy Home Minister Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed said, if approved, this would allow the police to have control of the database that would utilise facial recognition software, similar to the one used by the British police force.
"Currently, CCTVs are being maintained and operated by municipal councils. Although the quality of the images have improved, we can't, for instance, immediately identify the person if there was a snatch theft recorded by the camera.
“This will greatly help with crime prevention as well as police investigations," he said when met at the parliament lobby today.
“The recordings are kept by the respective council. If the system is applied, the police will be able to monitor all the CCTVs from a central operations room.
"The system will also allow identities of people visiting or passing by a crime hotspot area, for instance, to be kept in the database, so there will be issues of privacy. But in this matter, security is a priority," he said, adding that details, including the cost, are still being studied by the government.