The Times set out yesterday to investigate the extent of Britain's surveillance society. Are we really monitored constantly by CCTV cameras tracking our every move or have critics exaggerated the extent of Big Brother's watchful eye?

I followed an average London commuter's journey from Angel, Islington, to The Times's offices in Wapping, taking note of the cameras along the way. No fewer than nine CCTV cameras in and around the concourse of the Angel underground station captured me setting out as I turned into the heart of residential Islington.

From the top of a tall pole, higher than any lamppost, a council-run camera watched me as I made my way down City Road, past a nest of four traffic cameras observing the crossroads. Never before had I noticed the small cameras discreetly placed above dozens of doorways along the street as I passed from the view of one camera to the next along the length of the road.

Across the 3.1 mile stretch of my route — through Old Street and Aldgate and down past Tower Bridge into Wapping — there was a total of 283 CCTV cameras watching me on my way to work. This is an average of one camera every 18 metres.

Of those cameras, 108 were publicly operated by local councils or transport authorities; 175 were installed on private property, gazing out from shop doorways, car parks and businesses.

The installation and operation of private CCTV systems is not governed by statute in Britain, only by a discretionary code of practice issued by the Information Commissioner's Office. The councils of Islington, Hackney and Tower Hamlets through which I passed admitted that they had no idea how many privately installed cameras there were in their districts, and had no power to regulate them.

Islington Council said: “We don't have a record of how many there are that have been put up privately by residents or shopkeepers. They don't need to get any permission from the council to do this.”

Although the CCTV code of practice recommends that a camera operator “must let people know that they are in an area where CCTV surveillance is being carried out”, many of the private cameras along my route did not carry signs.

On my journey into the City, dozens more cameras loomed over the streets, some obvious, some hidden within tinted bulbs embedded on street corners.

Though hours of footage of my morning stroll to work are unlikely to have MI5 scrambling into action, the police would be at liberty to obtain and view the footage under the code of practice, which advises private CCTV operators that it is “appropriate to disclose images to law enforcement agencies where a crime needs to be investigated”. The code does not impose any limit on how long the footage can be kept in storage.Also, even though almost all the privately operated cameras on my route overlooked the public street, CCTV systems installed for household purposes are exempt from the Data Protection Act.

Simon Davies, the director of Privacy International, called for a national audit on the extent of surveillance. He said: “There are a great number of loopholes for privately installed camera systems. The whole visual surveillance sector needs a complete cleanout. The reality is that it's a sector which has become unruly, unlawful and unworkable.”

Around Aldgate, the buildings and lampposts bristled with scores of cameras. Even the doorway of a table-dancing club, named Secrets, was closely watched by two cameras.

Of the 108 publicly operated cameras, several bore council telephone numbers that did not work. Rather than monitoring specific troublespots — as recommended by the code of practice — they seemed to be monitoring vast areas of the street at regular intervals along the road.

Even as I arrived at the offices of The Times, a camera greeted me above the door. Was it there to protect me, or to record that I was five minutes late? I hurried inside.

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