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A plan by the Beijing city government to have thousands more video cameras installed in hotels, department stores, schools, night clubs and government offices, caused privacy concerns and a heated debate among experts and on the Internet.

The city government defends the move saying it will also introduce the first regulations to ever require businesses and institutions to keep the video images confidential.

Beijing already has 263,000 surveillance cameras around the city that not only monitor traffic flow on major road ways but also keep watch on back alleys, banks and markets, and even some campus and hospital corridors.

Only 15,000 cameras or 5.7 percent of the city's total, are installed by the government, said an official with the Beijing's legal affairs office.

The city's new regulations will require businesses and institutions to aim their cameras only within the boundaries of their property or work place. Private citizens will be prohibited from setting up their own surveillance cameras near roads and squares and other public places, according to the city.

Governments and police will only be allowed to view and copy the images when dealing with public emergencies or investigating criminal activity.

Individuals or organizations will have to arrange for long-term storage of the video images they collect and will be prohibited from altering or disseminating the pictures captured by their surveillance cameras. Companies violating the regulations can be fined up to 30,000 yuan and individuals can face fines up to 1,000 yuan.

Beijing's new regulations appear to be aimed at allaying public concerns over who has access to the images obtained by surveillance cameras. A survey jointly conducted by the China Youth Daily and Sina.com showed that 34.7 percent of the respondents worry that the cameras can be used to spy on people's private affairs.

There are several good examples people's privacy being invaded, or worse, stolen for profit.

In one case, a video camera in a hotel corridor caught a famous Chinese actress in the intimate embrace of her boyfriend. A security guard sold the footage to a Hong Kong newspaper.

In another case, a high-school principal in Shanghai staged a public showing of a videotape of two students kissing in a classroom, with the apparent aim of humiliating them. The teenage couple was so incensed they launched a lawsuit for invasion of privacy. They lost their suit but won a lot of public sympathy.

Prof. Li Xiandong, a law expert with the China University of Political Science and Law, says it is not the shooting of the video images but the loose management and control of the images that are causing concern.

Only Chongqing Municipality in southwest China has similar regulations restricting the use of the video images. There are no national laws governing the surveillance systems.

Wang Zongyu, a law professor at People's University in Beijing, is another expert calling for legislation governing the installation of video cameras and the use of the images they collect.

"Currently, anyone can freely install cameras and make a videotape and do whatever they want with it. How can you feel comfortable if you know that someone may be secretly watching you? " he said.

Video monitoring, of course, is not unique to China. More than 4.2 million closed-circuit surveillance cameras have been installed in Britain -- the most of any Western country.

Shanghai plans to install an additional 200,000 surveillance cameras by 2010. Shenzhen, a thriving city in south China's Guangdong Province, says by the end of this year it will have installed 200,000 cameras.

Even Zhengzhou, capital city of central China's Henan Province, has already set 40,000 monitor cameras, with another 60,000 planned in the next five years.

(Xinhua News Agency December 19, 2006)