They’re watching you: number of CCTV cameras in Liverpool has doubled since 2019 - biggest rise in the UK

The UK is the third most surveilled country in the world.
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The number of public CCTV cameras in Liverpool has increased by an incredible 98% since 2019, new research has revealed.

A series of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to councils across the UK show there are now 108,533 public cameras nationally, representing an increase of 14% (12,960 new devices).

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The biggest numerical increase was found in Liverpool, where there are now 741 more public CCTV cameras than there were in 2019 (up from 754 to 1,495).

Image: Oli Scarff/AFP/GettyImage: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty
Image: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty

And these figures do not include privately owned equipment, such as cameras operated by businesses or members of the public.

Liverpool City Council said: “These cameras are used by different service areas in the council for a range of reasons, including crime detection and prevention, traffic monitoring and bus lane enforcement and public reassurance.”

The UK is the third most surveilled country in the world and the study by IronmongeryDirect found that some local authorities have more than quadrupled their CCTV surveillance since 2019.

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It is expected that the number of CCTV cameras will continue to increase as new technology such as facial recognition becomes more widely used.

The local authorities that have increased CCTV at the quickest rate since 2019 are: