Big Brother may soon be watching, but as a computer program that can read your lips with superhuman accuracy.

Scientists at the University of Oxford have developed software that can read lips correctly 93.4 per cent of the time - a level that far surpasses the best professionals.

The researchers said the program, dubbed “LipNet”, could have “enormous practical potential”, being used to improve hearing aids, enable conversations in noisy places or to add speech to silent movies.

However, it may also have more sinister uses, enabling mass surveillance of citizens’ speech in public via CCTV or allowing anyone to pick up on private conversations.