Oct 15, 2026 · 59 min · 14 segments
Would you feel safer walking down a street lined with facial-recognition cameras every 50 metres, or would it just feel like being watched? That is the question hosts Lee Chwi Lynn and Susan Tam put…
Lee Chwi LynnHost
Susan TamHost
So surveillance is interesting because I think a lot of us would do and give up a lot to feel like you live in a very safe place.
Um, safety and security are obviously important aspects of feeling like you can just exist and thrive in a place that you call home, so I understand the focus on that, right? That there's no doubt that it's important.
The, the flip side argument of it, um, when it comes to surveillance is loss of privacy.
... because who is going to be privy to all of this content? Uh, not content, to all of this, all of these videos and photos of you.
What's going to happen there? I, I think there are also issues with whether you trust the state, and so there are all of these things that go into the conversation, and I think it's, it's a question of how much we're willing to just say, "Well, yeah, but will it keep us safer? And if it does, then that's fine."
Yeah, um, for sure, right? And I think being, um, living in the city as a Malaysian for such a long time, you are so familiar with the maintenance culture of any sort of infrastructure that, uh, any authorities set forth to kind of implement and whether there is, uh, going to be a consistent implementation, whether enforcement will follow through, whether laws are, you know, uh, kind of adhered to, and whether the right kind of convictions will happen.
Do you know what I mean? I mean, you don't want, like you say, uh, leaks to happen and abuse of information to happen, and more importantly, uh, now with so much AI use, you also worry about manipulation.
So I don't necessarily feel safer if I've got more cameras, uh, in my neighborhood.
I think, um, [lips smack] talking to your neighbors, knowing who you live next to is so much more important, uh, when it comes to safety for me.
I, uh, recently came back from China, and so I'm interested in the, the comparison to China and the, the taking, uh, basically taking heed, right, of what it is that they've done because one thing that travelers often say, and it's something that I experienced there also, I cannot speak as a citizen 'cause I'm not a citizen of, uh, the PRC, but as a visitor, uh, this is something travelers often cite, the safety.
The, the fact that you really feel that you can just walk by yourself at more or less whatever time, um, because it just feels very safe, and that, I think, has a lot to do with the type of policing they do and the amount of surveillance they have.
And I don't think it's intended to be subtle because obviously they, they want you to know that you are being watched, and so there are many, many cameras.
Having said that, they also don't feel obtrusive, so it's, it's quite an interesting balance that they've struck, and I think the trade-off there is also that people really feel the benefits, right? That, that people...
Firstly, it's a totally different political system, but the other thing is also that people can really feel, "Okay, fine.
And so I think whether the question of how successful it will be here is also whether we get that same feeling, whether we feel safer, whether we feel the impact.
So surveillance is interesting because I think a lot of us would do and give up a lot to feel like you live in a very safe place.
Um, safety and security are obviously important aspects of feeling like you can just exist and thrive in a place that you call home, so I understand the focus on that, right? That there's no doubt that it's important.
The, the flip side argument of it, um, when it comes to surveillance is loss of privacy.
... because who is going to be privy to all of this content? Uh, not content, to all of this, all of these videos and photos of you.
What's going to happen there? I, I think there are also issues with whether you trust the state, and so there are all of these things that go into the conversation, and I think it's, it's a question of how much we're willing to just say, "Well, yeah, but will it keep us safer? And if it does, then that's fine."
Yeah, um, for sure, right? And I think being, um, living in the city as a Malaysian for such a long time, you are so familiar with the maintenance culture of any sort of infrastructure that, uh, any authorities set forth to kind of implement and whether there is, uh, going to be a consistent implementation, whether enforcement will follow through, whether laws are, you know, uh, kind of adhered to, and whether the right kind of convictions will happen.
Do you know what I mean? I mean, you don't want, like you say, uh, leaks to happen and abuse of information to happen, and more importantly, uh, now with so much AI use, you also worry about manipulation.
So I don't necessarily feel safer if I've got more cameras, uh, in my neighborhood.
I think, um, [lips smack] talking to your neighbors, knowing who you live next to is so much more important, uh, when it comes to safety for me.
I, uh, recently came back from China, and so I'm interested in the, the comparison to China and the, the taking, uh, basically taking heed, right, of what it is that they've done because one thing that travelers often say, and it's something that I experienced there also, I cannot speak as a citizen 'cause I'm not a citizen of, uh, the PRC, but as a visitor, uh, this is something travelers often cite, the safety.
The, the fact that you really feel that you can just walk by yourself at more or less whatever time, um, because it just feels very safe, and that, I think, has a lot to do with the type of policing they do and the amount of surveillance they have.
And I don't think it's intended to be subtle because obviously they, they want you to know that you are being watched, and so there are many, many cameras.
Having said that, they also don't feel obtrusive, so it's, it's quite an interesting balance that they've struck, and I think the trade-off there is also that people really feel the benefits, right? That, that people...
Firstly, it's a totally different political system, but the other thing is also that people can really feel, "Okay, fine.
And so I think whether the question of how successful it will be here is also whether we get that same feeling, whether we feel safer, whether we feel the impact.
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