Watch the Watch
The surveillance technology governments operate
WatchWatch documents the surveillance technology governments operate, from license-plate readers and cameras to face recognition, drones, and acoustic sensors. It is building a worldwide record, so far covering the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Netherlands, with a citation behind every entry.
15,218 deployments on record 9,542 agencies 7 countries so far 10 technologies on record
A deployment is one technology in use by one agency: a citywide camera network and a single drone program each count once. The total is never a count of devices.
An observatory, not a campaign: WatchWatch records what exists and its status; readers draw their own conclusions. About this site →
The observatories
One observatory per country, expanding worldwide. Covered so far: the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Netherlands. Deployments on the public record, mapped by local jurisdiction and technology.
United States
15,069 deployments · 9,438 agencies · 56 states and territories · Explore the United States →
The record also covers Puerto Rico · U.S. Virgin Islands · Guam · American Samoa · Northern Mariana Islands.
The technologies
The categories the observatory tracks, counted across every covered jurisdiction. A zero means none on record, not necessarily none in operation. New to the subject? The technologies page explains each in plain language.
ALPR 4,182 Fixed cameras & RTCC 357 Face recognition 1,000 Drones / UAS 1,840 Gunshot detection 248 Body-worn & dashcam 5,486 Doorbell & camera registry 758 Cell-site simulators 84 Predictive policing 201 Social-media monitoring 0 Fusion & investigative platforms 1,062
The oversight layer
The record currently documents deployments, one entry per agency and technology: that a system is in operation, per public sources. It does not yet record the oversight around each system: whether the agency has published a use policy, whether the public has a path to the footage or data, what data-sharing is disclosed, and what legislation governs the technology.
Those records come from public-records requests, filed within each jurisdiction's law. Until a jurisdiction's records arrive, its oversight status reads not yet requested, a status and not a verdict.
How this record is built
Every entry keeps its citations, and the oversight layer is built from each jurisdiction's own public-records law. Full sourcing and methodology, including what this data is and is not, are on the methodology page.