You're under surveillance almost every minute of the day

CCTV cameras, surveillance of iPhones and Blackberries, GPS signals, social media and heat maps - you're always being tracked.

Former NSW Crime fighter Mark Standen flouted caution and was tracked by police and convicted on drug charges. Picture: News Lim

AT precisely 3:26pm on July 17 this year, pop star Britney Spears was recording music at the corner of West Oak Street and South Glenwood Place in Burbank, California.

On August 23 at 4:21pm, reports the University of California, Berkeley, Katy Perry was in rural northeast Colorado, at the intersection of Highways 46 and 55.

And on August 5 at 3:56pm, Oprah Winfrey was cruising down the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago.

It's not to hard to check the three stars' Twitter and Instagram feeds.

But they didn't record their locations, instead an app called "Ready or Not?" developed by Berkeley University created a "heat map" whereby a person's movements over 30 days can be tracked by the metadata encoded in their Twitter and Instagram posts.

"And when it comes to this kind of vulnerability, celebrities really are just like you," reports California Magazine.

As Australians should be well aware, even before you leave the security of your home, there's some "watcher" observing your every movement.

From the moment you open your computer, use your smartphone to send a text, or simply walk around the streets you are being tracked on its internal GPS.

And once you're outside the door and heading to work, you are walking past a growing number of CCTV cameras placed by councils, governments and businesses.

Companies increasingly monitor their staff movements. Picture: Supplied.

But there's even more.

Security experts working for large Australian companies have told News.com.au how just about every movement on the job of their thousands of employees is now monitored by an increasingly sophisticated network of cameras.

"Even if you have a workforce of 5000 or 6000 people, with biometrics and cameras around locations and in vehicles, we can be sitting in Sydney and simultaneously watching what someone is doing hundreds of kilometres away in Auckland and Perth," said John Garvey, security director at transport giant TNT Asian Pacific.

"Tracking technology is fantastic now and we have cameras in our network with 360-degree vision.

"We must tell staff they are on CCTV and they sign a condition they are aware of being filmed, but we also have cameras in the cabins of our trucks operating in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, so that if they are attacked by bandits, the control room in Singapore is watching the driver in real time and prevent a hijacking."

Security surveillance cameras and CCTV is increasingly part of city landscapes. Picture: Supplied.

Mr Garvey, a former senior detective of the NSW Police, said the fact councils, governments and businesses had CCTV and monitoring devices, as well as the tracking properties of mobile phones made avoiding scrutiny "more difficult, although not impossible".

But according to spyware expert Lachlan Jarvis, many ordinary people are also using sophisticated software to eavesdrop on the wireless communications of their lovers, children and business rivals.

Mr Jarvis, of Lyonswood Investigations and Forensic Group, said Australians were among the most privacy-conscious in the world, but more people were installing some form of surveillance software on their phones.

Commercially available spyware can secretly log each text message, phone call and contact, and in some cases, eavesdrop on calls in real time.

Mr Jarvis said it was illegal to fit conversation recording software without a person's knowledge, but installations were probably done by suspicious partners or by unscrupulous private investigators.

Mr Jarvis expects the figure to grow.

"We do analyse people's devices for evidence of spyware," he said.

"And even though Australians are very pro-privacy, they are one of the biggest users in the world of mobile phones and computers.

"And when people are moving around places like shopping centres, retail outlets are monitoring the data signals on their phones to study where consumers are moving and how long they are spending at various displays.

"Every time you post a photograph on Instagram, for example, you can be tracked geographically to the place you were when you posted the photograph."

Mr Garvey said criminals were "always finding ways to be ahead of technology that could track them", although some recent cases reveal how they have slipped up or been outsmarted.

Experts point to several key cases where surveillance has been crucial in solving serious crimes.

In the end, even the bush was no cover for murderer, Malcolm Naden, once police placed cameras and heat sensors. Picture: Suppli

1. Killer eludes cops by going bush

Malcolm Naden, murderer and so-called master bushman, evaded police for seven years by keeping away from cities and built-up areas.

Police and security experts say it is possible to avoid surveillance - at least temporarily - by staying out of the city centre and sticking to small suburbs.

Keep away from shopping centres or even medium sized clusters of shops and offices.

If you have a crucial meeting, make it at a beach, although councils do install some CCTV at beaches, or preferably meet in a park.

Trees are great for masking visibility and dousing sound recordings.

Former NSW Crime fighter Mark Standen flouted caution and was tracked by police and convicted on drug charges. Picture: News Lim

2. iPhones are easier to track than BlackBerries

It may have been 20th century technology - a fax machine - which first alerted police to former senior drug investigator and crime commission assistant director Mark Standen's involvement in a conspiracy to import methamphetamines.

But when a task force was set up to investigate, it used all the listening devices and other surveillance means, including computer screen-grabs and hi-tech phone intercepts.

Security experts told News.com.au the easiest phones to tap were iPhones, followed by androids, while the hardest to intercept in the smartphone category were BlackBerries.

"But the best way to evade phone tapping is to use prepaid mobiles which can be used a number of times, or if you are extra careful, thrown away after just one use," a corporate security adviser said.

Collar bomber, Paul Douglas Peters, was sloppy about disguising his movements. Picture: AP

3. How a library card brought the "Collar Bomber" down

Collar bomber Paul Douglas Peters thought he had an ingenious plan to demand money, but even as Madeline Pulver sat terrified in her home with Peters' pretend device around her neck, he had already left a damning trail of video evidence for police.

Investigators would use records of his electronic purchases, Gmail login and CCTV footage from Kincumber Library car park on the NSW Central Coast which shows Peters' gold Range Rover arrive shortly before a Gmail account written on the collar device was accessed through the library's computer.

Police were able to search RTA records to owners of similar cars and identify Peters' vehicle from Madeline's description.

"Believe that every public building, no matter how small, has cameras these days," the security manager of a federal Australian authority said.

If the CCTV footage didn't get Adrian Bayley for Jill Meagher's murder, road toll data and mobile phone tracking sea

4. Killer Adrian Bayley slips up and gets caught

Murderer Adrian Bayley had already been recorded on CCTV footage stalking his victim Jill Meagher before he committed the ultimate crime.

From then on, he was bold and careless in his bid to dispose of Ms Meagher's body and flee the crime scene.

Road and traffic authorities monitor the passage of vehicles through tolling points via e-tags, and this is one of tracking devices which brought Bayley undone.

With Ms Meagher's mobile phone tracked to radio towers at precise times during the period following her murder, police then matched a record of Bayley's vehicle passing through tollway gantries at the same time.

Officers then acquired footage of the traffic during this period, which they slowed down and identified Bayley's car.

They had him.

CCTV footage from Sydney Airport. The man dressed in white is Mick Hawi, who was found guilty the murder of rival bikie Anthony

5. Why crims wear hoodies and caps

CCTV cameras and other surveillance devices tend to be placed above a thoroughfare.

Companies and institutions do not outlaw the wearing of hoodies or caps for nothing.

"They are very good at shielding a person's identity," one former police officer and security adviser said.

"Even grainy images of people can undergo face recognition screening."

In 2009, conflict between the two motorcycle clubs culminated in a brawl at Sydney Airport and the death of Hells Angel, Anthony Zervas.

Comanchero, Mahmoud "Mick'' Hawi and his cohorts were captured clearly on Sydney airport arrival hall security cameras, making identification and subsequent conviction of Hawi a straight up and down case.