Albania is installing thousands of AI-linked cameras across 20 cities and 28 border points under a $113.6m deal with UAE firm Presight AI, but journalists found the contract classified, no data-protection impact assessment, and police denying the facial-recognition capability the
113.6 US$ million
Total contract value
2,239
License-plate-recognition cameras
2,602
Pan-tilt-zoom traffic cameras
Details
Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Albanian Ministry of Interior / State Police (with Presight AI, UAE)
Period
2024–2025 (rollout ongoing)
Keywords
public safety, surveillance, smart city, law enforcement
Context
Announced April 2024 and formalised in a February 2025 agreement between Albanian PM Edi Rama and UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Albania's 'Smart City' programme is a $113.6 million deployment of 2,239 automatic license-plate-recognition cameras and 2,602 pan-tilt-zoom traffic cameras built by Abu Dhabi-based Presight AI, installed across 20 cities and 28 international border crossings.
Activities
Reporting by Transitions Online and bne IntelliNews found that the contract's technical specifications were classified, no data-protection impact assessment was conducted before installation, and procurement bypassed Albania's standard competitive-tender process through an exemption used for UAE state companies.
Conclusions
Albania's State Police maintain the cameras are ordinary CCTV and deny operating facial-recognition software, even though vendor materials describe the units as 'smart cameras' with analytical capability, and formal privacy-oversight requirements do not take effect until 2027. This practice is included as a documented cautionary case: a real, large-scale AI-adjacent public-safety deployment moving ahead of the legal and oversight framework meant to govern it.
Implementation
Indicative cost
Very high (> €5M) — US$113.6 million total deal value.
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years) — Announced April 2024, formalised February 2025, rollout ongoing.
Staffing & skills
Albanian Ministry of Interior, State Police, Presight AI (UAE vendor)
Common failure modes
classified contract technical specifications
no data-protection impact assessment conducted before installation
procurement bypassed standard competitive tender via a state-company exemption
formal privacy oversight not in effect until 2027
Where it fits
Governance type
national government with foreign state-owned vendor
Scale
national (20 cities, 28 border crossings)
Income level
upper-middle income (Albania, EU candidate)
Commonly funded by
National / regional programmes
Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.
Do you run this practice?
Claim it —
verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.
Data sources
Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.
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