Revealed: the London borough with the most surveillance cameras
Living in a huge metropolitan city like London, there's always someone looking at you. Usually it's just one of the nine million other people who live in this city, but sometimes, it's Big Brother.
It's estimated that there are nearly 130,000 public CCTV cameras across the capital kitted out and ready to observe, but some places are more populated by them than others. Tech research company Comparitech have been crunching the numbers, and they've discovered which borough in London has the most surveillance cameras.
But first, where does the Big Smoke rank globally? It turns out that we are the 12th most watched city in the world, with Hyderabad in India taking the crown (outside of China). London also has the third most cameras of any European city per person, beaten only by Moscow and St Petersburg. But where actually are these cameras?
Well, you're most likely to be being surveilled in the City of London, where there are just over 75 cameras per 1000 people. This is a significant amount more than the average across Greater London, where there's only 13 for every 1000 people. Because the City is such a densely packed part of the capital – famously known as 'the Square Mile' precisely because of its small area – there's a much higher concentration of cameras dotted around this borough than any other.
This is likely in part because, being home to St Paul's Cathedral, the Bank of England, and many other important buildings, the City has got a lot of goods to guard, and a lot of money that can go towards funding security systems.
Surprisingly, Comparitech said that they found 'little correlation' between the number of CCTV cameras and the crime rates in an area, meaning that all that surveillance might not be doing much to deter criminals anyway.
Whether more security cameras make you feel safer, or just a little bit uneasy, it's unlikely that we'll see a future where there's less of them than there are now. However, if you really don't want to be caught on camera, it might be best you stay away from the City of London.
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