POLICE are secretly filming drinkers, hoping to obtain evidence of drunkenness in order to prosecute hotels and bars.

Civil liberty groups are outraged by the practice, saying it is a serious invasion of privacy.

Drinkers are being secretly filmed by members of the Razon taskforce.

Wearing cameras concealed in their clothes, police from the Razon taskforce, which is charged with enforcing Victoria's increasingly hardline licensing laws, are tailing unsuspecting patrons and recording long segments of video.

Liberty Victoria and the Victorian Law Reform Commission have called for an urgent review of Victoria's privacy and surveillance laws. Liberty Victoria chairman Spencer Zifcak said the covert filming was an ''egregious invasion of privacy''.