(logo whooshing)

- A recent report estimates

about a billion securitycameras rolling worldwide,

18% of them here in the United States,

like at this ATM.

Every time you do your banking,you're caught on camera.

But you don't have to beusing a service like that

in order to be caught on camera.

In fact, just walking down the street

you can be captured on closed circuit TV.

The U.S. is second only to China

when it comes to keepingeyes on its citizens.

Make no mistake, Big Brother is watching.

According to safety.com,the average American

is caught on camera 238 times each week.

- Wow! (laughing)

It surprises me, and it feels a bit weird

to think about that.

- [Eric] Concerning at all?

- No, I just think it keepspeople safer than it doesn't,

and if you don't wantto be doing something

that shouldn't be recorded, don't do it.

- [Eric] Here's how those238 camera views rack up.

Cameras capture you at homeor in your neighborhood

14 times a week, 160times behind the wheel.

While you're working candidcameras catch you 40 times,

maybe more if you're in retail,

travel, or high security industries,

and 24 times a week whileshopping or running errands.

- I mean, I don't like it,

but I don't know if it surprises me.

But yeah, not a great thing to know.

- [Eric] Jay Stanley isa Senior Policy Analyst

with the ACLU.

- We're seeing a very rapid increase

in the amount of public cameras

that Americans were subject to.

Right now, we have about 15 cameras

for every 100 people in America,about 50 million cameras.

And that's more per capita

than any other countryin the world, even China.

I mean the basic concern

is that we're going to lose our privacy,

and we're going to become a country

that's different fromwhat we've always been.

That from the moment youstep out of your front door

until you return home at night,

every moment of your lifein public will be recorded,

potentially scrutinized, watched.

- [Eric] He says it's oftenartificial intelligence

keeping track, not humans.

- Computers that analyzeyour daily routines

and understand what you'redoing, what you're carrying,

what you're wearing, who youare, what your attributes are,

and filing that away somewhere.

- You don't expect privacyon the street corner.

So if a camera captures

what you're doing in the street corner,

I don't think that's anintrusion on privacy.

- [Eric] UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh

believes the positivesoutweigh the negatives.

- It makes it easier forexample, to catch criminals.

Maybe make it easier to exonerate people

who are falsely accused of crime.

May also deter crime.

While cameras have their problems,

the question's compared to what?

Compared to moreaggressive police presence,

our problems may be less.

- [Eric] Both expertsagree the biggest concern

is the potential for governmenttracking its citizens

under the guise of crime prevention.

- We're seeing some cities like Chicago

putting police cameras all over the city

and networking them together.

They're also tying in private cameras.

In some cases(doorbell ringing)

the Ring cameras are beingnetworked together by Amazon,

which takes all the camerafeeds and puts them in the cloud

potentially making themavailable to the authorities.

- [Eric] Part of thesolution, experts say,

is private citizens askingthemselves several questions

before installing camerason personal property.

Do you trust the manufacturer

who may store images on their own servers?

Do you trust that the internet,

because any cameras tied to the web

are susceptible to being hacked?

And do you trust the government,

that in many cases can use a warrant

(sirens blaring)

to access what your camera captures?

- But if you're really worried about that,

I think the solution is to make it harder

to abuse the cameras and notto not to stop them altogether.

- Nobody's saying that you can stop

technology from rolling forward,

but you can put someconstraints on that shape,

how it's deployed, so thatit comports with our values.

- Stanley says that's wherelaw makers should step in.

He says they need to implement laws

controlling access to these cameras,

allowing us to benefit from this tech

without becoming a surveillance society.

In Washington, Eric Phillips, CBN News.