Mexico City's Centro de Comando, Control, Cómputo, Comunicaciones y Contacto Ciudadano (C5) launched the 2026-2027 school year on Monday, August 31, with 45,029 surveillance cameras deployed in the vicinity of basic-education schools, 29% more than the 34,984 cameras in place in 2024, according to a September 2 report by El Sol de México.
The deployment is part of the city's back-to-school security operation: monitoring coverage reaches more than 99% of public schools and 96% of private preschool, primary, and secondary schools, according to El Universal. For Mexico City, the figure marks a clear policy trajectory. Video surveillance is the instrument the city expands every school year to secure the educational environment, in both public and private institutions.
Growth was concentrated across all three levels of basic education: surveillance points rose from 12,721 to 16,856 at the preschool level; from 15,500 to 19,680 at the primary level; and from 6,748 to 8,493 at the secondary level. More than 16,000 additional cameras cover the roads adjacent to school grounds. The operation deploys cameras mounted at 9 and 20 meters and totem-style units with 360-degree vision and emergency-alert buttons, the C5 reported, and the 911 emergency line remains active throughout. C5 general coordinator Salvador Guerrero Chiprés stated that the expansion aims to strengthen school security, with particular attention to arrival hours and preventive outreach to promote civic culture. On the first day of classes, the operation already addressed behaviors such as triple-row parking in front of school entrances.
Monitoring will continue throughout the 2026-2027 school year. Every morning at 6:40, the security cabinet will review a report on events at schools across the city. That daily log will accumulate, over the course of the year, a comprehensive record of how the school environment responds to the expanded coverage.
This article was drafted with artificial-intelligence assistance from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.