Cameras and journalist. James Pasley

Cameras are everywhere — for private and public security, for personal use on the backs (and fronts) of phones, for safety on roads.

The total number of cameras in the world could reach 45 billion by 2022, when t he global video-surveillance industry is forecast to reach $63 billion.

I documented all the cameras on a daily commute from Brooklyn to Business Insider’s headquarters in downtown Manhattan. What I found revealed a disturbing reality.

Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

America, home of the brave, land of the free, is watching.

Tens of millions of cameras are watching people across the country. The total number of cameras in the world could reach 45 billion by 2022, when the global video-surveillance industry is forecast to reach $63 billion.

As Arthur Holland Michel, who wrote a book about high-tech surveillance, told The Atlantic in June, „Someday, most major developed cities in the world will live under the unblinking gaze of some form of wide-area surveillance.“

New York City has an estimated 9,000 cameras linked to a system the New York Police Department calls the „Domain Awareness System.“ But there are more cameras that aren’t linked to the system.

I documented all the cameras on my daily commute from Brooklyn to our office in Manhattan’s Financial District. Here’s what I found.

I documented every surveillance camera on my way to work in New York City, and it revealed a dystopian reality

33 Bilder Open slideshow