Colombia. The Council of Bogotá approved the Draft Agreement authored by Councilman Julián Uscátegui, which seeks to strengthen the security and coexistence of residents in complexes and buildings of horizontal property for residential use.
The project will allow the District Administration to implement interoperability between the security cameras of residential complexes and the city's video surveillance system, managed by the Command, Control, Communications and Computing Center (C4). According to official figures, currently only 16% of the cameras in residential complexes are connected to the C4. In Bogotá there are 15,905 co-properties subject to the horizontal property regime.
According to DANE's 2023 National Quality of Life Survey, 60.26% of Bogota residents live in apartments, which is equivalent to about 1,820,000 households in condominium.
The project seeks to integrate the video surveillance systems of sets with cameras oriented exclusively towards public and outdoor spaces to be integrated into the security system of the National Police, which will facilitate the immediate response of the authorities to criminal acts or emergency situations.
"With this initiative we hope to move towards a safer Bogotá. It is unbelievable that, having thousands of cameras in residential complexes, only 16% are connected to the central monitoring system and that, in the face of an act of insecurity, the authorities must wait weeks to have the videos from the cameras. This project will allow technology to be truly at the service of citizen security, that the authorities can monitor the city in real time and that they can access the evidentiary material more quickly," said Councilor Julián Uscátegui.
The initiative also contemplates prevention measures against problems such as domestic violence. According to the Ministry of Security, in January 2025, 3,076 cases of domestic violence were registered in Bogotá, an increase of 47.5% compared to the same month of the previous year, when 2,085 cases were reported.
The project includes an institutional intervention plan to train and disseminate the single route of care for women victims of violence, as well as the mechanisms for its activation in the event of events within residential complexes.
"It is not enough to react to crime. This project also promotes preventive and pedagogical actions that seek to protect those who need it most, especially women victims of violence in their homes," said Councilor Uscátegui.
In terms of crimes against property, the National Police reported 967 thefts from residences in 2024, with January, May, February, September and December being the months with the highest incidence. 26% of the cases were committed using levers or other elements to force access. So far in 2025, 106 cases of home theft have already been registered in the city.
