Mauritius Safe City — Nationwide Facial-Recognition Surveillance Without Independent Oversight

In December 2017, Mauritius approved the Safe City Project, a nationwide surveillance network built by Huawei and Mauritius Telecom and financed through a loan from the Export-Import Bank of China. Rolled out from 2019, it links roughly 4,000 smart CCTV cameras and 300 traffic and licence-plate cameras to a police Command, Control and Communication Centre, giving the Mauritius Police Force real-time facial-recognition and automatic number-plate recognition across the island.
Huawei states facial-recognition accuracy exceeds 95% and licence-plate recognition exceeds 99%, though these figures come from the vendor rather than an independent evaluation. A parliamentary disclosure in July 2025 put annual operating costs at about US$8.7 million, on top of financing reported at roughly US$455-456 million over 20 years.
The project has drawn sustained criticism over accountability. Its contract terms were never shared with the National Audit Office, and Section 44 of the Data Protection Act exempts Safe City data from oversight on national-security grounds. The system's credibility was further undermined by the 2020 death of political operative Soopramanien Kistnen, when Safe City footage relevant to the investigation was reported missing; a magistrate later described police conduct in the inquiry as 'abhorrent'. The project was also awarded through an unsolicited bid, without public tender.

Read the full analysis: https://www.hoover.org/research/trappings-mauritius-safe-city-project