The municipal government of Badalona has approved the file for the purchase and installation of 615 security cameras, with a budget of €26.9 million. Mayor Xavier Garcia Albiol expects the work to begin in January 2027.
The City Council of Badalona has taken a firm step in its plan to reinforce public safety with the approval of the contracting file for 615 surveillance cameras. The municipal Information Commission gave the green light this Tuesday to the technical specifications of a contract valued at €26.9 million, which includes the purchase, installation, and maintenance of the devices until 2032.
Mayor Xavier Garcia Albiol has announced that the tender will open in the coming days and that, if awarded by the end of the year, the installation works will begin in January 2027. The project includes the deployment of 127 traffic cameras and 488 for public safety, distributed across all neighbourhoods and industrial areas of the city.
“Badalona will make a technological leap in terms of video surveillance that will be cutting-edge at a national level,” declared Albiol. With this initiative, the city will match Barcelona in the number of cameras on public streets. The Catalan capital plans to install 500 devices between 2026 and 2027, which will be added to the existing 160.
The mayor emphasised that “we have no information about any other city that has undertaken a project to install such a number of cameras all at once.” The council estimates that the installation of the 615 cameras will take about nine months, so the network could be fully operational by the end of 2027.
The budget for the contract amounts to €26.9 million, a figure higher than the €12 million that the municipal plenary approved in June 2025 for this purpose. Albiol explained that the difference is due to the contract including maintenance of the network until 2032. Thus, the projected expenditure for 2027 is €11.8 million, while €3.4 million will be allocated annually for the following years.
The project was already supported in March 2026 by the new head of the Badalona Urban Guard, Óscar Parada, who described the measure as “pioneering in Catalunya.” Parada noted at the time that the system could contribute to a decrease in crime in the city and praised its data analysis capabilities.
The contract includes the creation of a control room that will use artificial intelligence to manage the information from the images. From that room, the cameras can be monitored live and recordings can be consulted. “The law sets a series of filters for the identification of people on the street,” explained Albiol, who has advocated for a legal update to adapt to new criminal trends.
“The new criminal trends will require some reconsideration at the national level regarding privacy protection,” reflected the mayor. “Administrations must keep pace with what technological advances require, and one of them is AI related to the protection of individuals and video surveillance,” he added.
The initiative has been promoted by the minority PP municipal government and has the support of the PSC, which voted in favour of the budget modification in 2025. Albiol stated that “when it comes into operation, it will be a turning point in terms of security.”
The residents of Badalona will see how the cameras are installed in their streets starting in 2027, with a deployment that will cover the entire municipal area. The council hopes that the network will deter criminals and help solve crimes more quickly.
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