There are more than 10,000 CCTV cameras surveilling public outdoor spaces in New Zealand, a fleet of digital eyes owned by local or central government agencies. Some are in place to monitor traffic, weather or flooding, but most commonly they’ve been installed for security.
In our biggest city, Auckland Transport and Auckland Council own about 5685 cameras combined
This amounts to four cameras per 1000 residents, and that doesn’t include the cameras owned by Waka Kotahi, police, businesses, or installed at private properties. They’re omnipresent.
Take a stroll through the shared car and pedestrian portion of Fort Street, in downtown Auckland, and you’ll be filmed by 21 different cameras in a space of about 100 metres.
It’s not just Auckland that’s peppered with cameras. There are eyes in the streets of almost every district in the country.
