Surveillance technology isn’t new, but there has been an exponential increase in the number of security cameras deployed throughout the United States and around the world. CNBC reports that there will be an estimated one billion security cameras filming around the world by 2021, with somewhere between 10-18% of those being in the United States alone.
When calculated on a per-person basis, this is the second-highest ratio of security cameras to population in the world. CBS News reported in 2019 that second to China, the US has at least one security camera filming for every 4.6 people, compared to one camera for every 4.1 people in China.
Below, our research on how many times one might be filmed by security cameras each day is based on IPUMS Time Use data and spread out over the course of an average week: