Big brother is watching you. Outdoor surveillance accounts for nearly half of all global government spending on IoT, according to Gartner. 

Governments are projected to spend $14.7 billion globally on IoT this year, earmarking $6.7 billion or 45.6% for outdoor surveillance. The total government IoT market is expected to jump more than 18% to $17.4 billion in 2021, according to Gartner.

Outdoor surveillance will continue to dominate government IoT spending next year, as the firm projects the category to reach $7.6 billion and capture almost 44% of the total market. 

The analyst firm expects governments to deploy an average of eight cameras per thousand urban residents for outdoor surveillance by 2021, marking a 33% increase from six cameras per thousand people in 2019.

The Greater China region is poised to account for 48% of all global government spending on IoT this year, while the U.S. and Western Europe will represent 16% and 15% of government IoT spending, respectively, according to Gartner. 

The Chinese government is playing an outsized role in the outdoor surveillance spending surge, growing its footprint from an average of 27 cameras per thousand citizens in 2019 to 32 cameras per thousand people by 2021.

“Governments are increasing their spending on outdoor surveillance cameras to monitor cities for crime. In the wake of COVID-19, they are also used to track compliance with safety restrictions,” Kay Sharpington, principal research analyst at Gartner, said in a statement.

Violent crime has fallen dramatically in the U.S. since the mid-’90s, but many major U.S. cities have reported an uptick in homicides since the onset of the global pandemic.

Governments are also spending vast sums of money on IoT in traffic management, street lighting, municipality asset tracking, and police evidence gathering. Taken together, police evidence gathering and outdoor surveillance will account for about 51% of all government IoT spending this year and in 2021, according to Gartner.

Government IoT spending on traffic management will jump from $1.6 billion this year to $2 billion in 2021, and city asset tracking will jump from $1.6 billion to $2 billion during the same period, the firm predicts. Street and outdoor lighting are projected to jump from $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion, police evidence gathering will rise from $900 million to $1.3 billion, and “other” IoT spending will grow from $2.1 billion to $2.5 billion during the next year.