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A closed-circuit television camera.

Mass surveillance is the pervasive surveillance of an entire population, or a substantial fraction thereof. Mass surveillance may be done either with or without the consent of those under surveillance, and may or may not serve their interests. For example, the monitoring of the population for disease in epidemiology would generally be viewed as a benign form of mass surveillance, whereas a network of secret police informers would be regarded as surveillance abuse. Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... Security camera at London (Heathrow) Airport. ... Security camera at London (Heathrow) Airport. ... This article refers to a surveillance system. ... For other uses, see Surveillance (disambiguation). ... Consent (as a term of jurisprudence) is a possible justification against civil or criminal liability. ... This article is about the medical term. ... Epidemiology is the study of factors affecting the health and illness of populations, and serves as the foundation and logic of interventions made in the interest of public health and preventive medicine. ... This article is about secret police as organizations. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ...

Commercial mass surveillance

As a result of the digital revolution, many aspects of life are now captured and stored in digital form. Concern has been expressed that governments may use this information to conduct mass surveillance on their populations. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

One of the most common forms of mass surveillance is carried out by commercial organizations. Many people are willing to join loyalty card programs, trading their personal information and surveillance of their shopping habits in exchange for a discount on their groceries, although base prices might be increased to encourage participation in the program. Since a significant proportion of purchases are carried out by credit or debit cards, which can also be easily tracked, it is questionable whether loyalty cards provide any significant additional privacy threat. In marketing generally and in retailing more specifically, a loyalty card, rewards card, points card, or club card is a plastic card, visually similar to a credit card or debit card, that identifies the card holder as a member in a commercial incentives programme. ... Look up credit card in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

State enforced

European Union

Further information: Government databases

The legislative body of the European Union passed the Data Retention Directive on 2005-12-15. It requires telecommunication operators to implement mass surveillance of the general public through retention of metadata on telecommunications and to keep the collected data at the disposal of various governmental bodies for substantially long times. Access to this information is not required to be limited to investigation of serious crimes, nor is a warrant required for access. Government databases collect personal information for various reasons (mass surveillance, Schengen Information System in the European Union, Social Security, statistics, etc. ... The European Union legislative procedure describes the way the European Union creates and enacts legislation across the community. ... // Definition Data retention is the storage of telephony and internet traffic and transaction data by governments and commercial organisations. ...

Russia

The SORM (and SORM-2) laws enable complete monitoring of any communication, electronic or traditional, by eight state agencies, without warrant. SORM (Sistema Operativno-Rozysknykh Meropriyatii, literally System of Ensuring Investigative Activity) is a Russian law passed in 1995 that allows the FSB (successor to the KGB) to monitor communications. ...

United Kingdom

A bank of seven Closed-circuit television cameras monitoring people exiting Birmingham New Street Station, a major British railway station.

The UK is seen as a pioneer of mass surveillance. Amongst the western countries, the United Kingdom is definitely the country subject to the most surveillance. Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 559 pixelsFull resolution (1780 × 1244 pixel, file size: 600 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Other versions None. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 559 pixelsFull resolution (1780 × 1244 pixel, file size: 600 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Other versions None. ... This article refers to a surveillance system. ... The tracks at the eastern end of Birmingham New Street station Class 390 no. ...

Public perception

A YouGov poll published on December 4, 2006, indicated that 79% of those interviewed agreed that Britain has become a 'surveillance society’ (51% were unhappy with this) [1]. In 2004 the Government's own Information Commissioner, talking about the proposed British national identity database gave a warning of this, stating, "My anxiety is that we don't sleepwalk into a surveillance society." Other databases causing him concern are the National Child Database, the Office for National Statistics' Citizen Information Project, and the NHS National Programme for IT. YouGov is a British internet-based market research firm. ... An opinion poll is a survey of opinion from a particular sample. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC) in the United Kingdom, is an independent government authority and reports directly to Parliament. ... Enabling legislation for the British national identity card was passed under the Identity Cards Act 2006. ... This article is about computing. ... After many years of discussion through successive governments, in 2003 Home Secretary David Blunkett announced that the government intends to introduce a British national identity card linked to a national identity database, the National Identity Register. ... Office for National Statistics logo The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the United Kingdom government executive agency charged with the collection and publication of statistics related to the economy, population and society of the United Kingdom at national and local levels. ... In the United Kingdom, the Citizen Information Project (CIP) is a plan by the Office for National Statistics to build a national population register. ... NHS redirects here. ... The National Programme for IT (NPfIT) which is being delivered by the new Department of Health agency NHS Connecting for Health (CfH), is an initiative by the National Health Service in England to move towards an electronic care record for patients and to connect 30,000 GPs to 300 hospitals...

CCTV networks

In 2004 it was estimated[2] that the United Kingdom was monitored by over four million CCTV cameras, some with a facial recognition capacity, with practically all town centres under surveillance. Serious concerns have been raised that the facial biometric information which will be stored on a central database through the ID Card scheme could be linked to facial recognition systems and state-owned CCTV cameras to identify individuals anywhere in the UK, or even to compile a database of wanted citizens' movements without their knowledge or consent. Currently, in the City of Westminster, microphones are being fitted next to CCTV cameras. Westminster council claims that they are simply part of an initiative against urban noise, and will not "be used to snoop", but comments from a council spokesman appear to imply that they have been deliberately designed to capture an audio stream alongside the video stream, rather than simply reporting noise levels. [3] 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article refers to a surveillance system. ... A facial recognition system is a computer-driven application for automatically identifying a person from a digital image. ... This article is about computing. ... German identity document sample An identity document is a piece of documentation designed to prove the identity of the person carrying it. ... A facial recognition system is a computer-driven application for automatically identifying a person from a digital image. ... The City of Westminster is a borough of London, England with city status. ... Microphones redirects here. ...

Public transport

In London, the Oyster card payment system [4] can track the movement of individual people through the public transport system, although an anonymous option is available, while the London congestion charge uses computer imaging to track car number plates. This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... Front and back of an early Oyster card. ... Mass transit redirects here. ... The white-on-red C marks all entrances to the congestion charge zone. ... Computer vision is the science and technology of machines that see. ... British car number plates have existed in the United Kingdom since 1904. ...

Communication

UK telecoms companies will have to keep phone call logs for a year under a new law, which came into force in October 2007. Though all telecoms firms keep data for a period, the regulations are designed to ensure a uniform approach across the industry.^[1] This enables the Government and other selected authorities within the UK such as Police and Councils amongst others to monitor all phonecalls made from a UK landline or Mobile upon request.

Vehicle tracking

Main article: Police-enforced ANPR in the UK

Across the country efforts are increasingly underway to track closely all road vehicle movements, initially using a nationwide network of roadside cameras connected to automatic number plate recognition systems. In the longer term mandatory onboard vehicle telematics systems are also suggested, to facilitate road charging (see vehicle excise duty). Closed-circuit television cameras such as these can be used to take the images scanned by automatic number plate recognition systems The UK has an extensive ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) CCTV network. ... Disruptions in organized traffic flow can create delays lasting hours. ... The system must be able to deal with different styles of licence plates Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR; see also other names below) is a mass surveillance method that uses optical character recognition on images to read the licence plates on vehicles. ... The term telematics is used in a number of ways: The integrated use of telecommunications and informatics, also known as ICT (Information and Communications Technology). ... Road pricing is a generic term for charging for the use of roads using direct methods, charging the users of a specific section of the road network for its use. ... A UK vehicle licence (tax disc) In the United Kingdom, Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) (often known as road tax, although it is not hypothecated for spending on roads, and before 1936 as road fund licence) is an annual tax on the use of motor vehicles on the public roads. ...

DNA Database

The British Police hold records of 5.5 million fingerprints and over 3.4 million DNA samples on the National DNA Database. There is increasing use of roadside fingerprinting - using new police powers to check identity. Concerns have been raised over the unregulated use of biometrics in schools, affecting children as young as three. The British police are a group of similar but independent police services which operate in the United Kingdom. ... Fingerprints can refer to: Human fingerprints Fingerprints, a Leonard Cohen song. ... The structure of part of a DNA double helix Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is a nucleic acid molecule that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms. ... The United Kingdom National DNA Database (NDNAD; officially the UK National Criminal Intelligence DNA Database) was set up in 1995. ... Starting in the early 2000s, thousands of schools throughout the world have begun to establish biometric systems. ...

Legislation

In 2002 the UK government announced plans to extend the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, so that at least 28 government departments would be given powers to browse citizens' web, email, telephone and fax records, without a warrant and without a subject's knowledge. Public and security authorities made a total of 440,000 requests to monitor people's phone and internet use in 2005-6. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIP or RIPA) is a United Kingdom law covering the interception of communications. ...

Rest of Europe

The Netherlands and Germany are reputed to have the highest levels of covert governmental mobile phone tapping. The article on telephone tapping states: Telephone tapping (or wire tapping/wiretapping in the US) is the monitoring of telephone and Internet conversations by a third party, often by covert means. ...

"There were proposals for European mobile phones to use stronger encryption, but this was opposed by a number of European countries, including the Netherlands and Germany, which are among the world's most prolific telephone tappers (over 10000+ phone numbers in both countries in 2003)."

In 2002 German citizens were tipped off about the scale of tapping, when a software error led to a phone number allocated to the German Secret Service being listed on mobile telephone bills. [5] Also see: 2002 (number). ...

United States

See also: NSA warrantless surveillance controversy

In early 2006, USA Today reported that several major telephone companies were cooperating with the National Security Agency to monitor the phone records of U.S. citizens. This report came on the heels of allegations that the U.S. government had been conducting electronic surveillance of domestic telephone calls without warrants. Many of the phone companies listed in the report have refuted this claim.^[2] Just prior to the USA Today article, AT&T's role in helping the government spy on millions of ordinary Americans came to light from documents used in their San Francisco office. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has an ongoing lawsuit against the telecom giant and has managed to keep the proceedings open. Recently the documents showing schematics of the massive data mining system were made public.^[3][4] Teh NSA warrantless surveillance controversy concerns surveillance of persons within the United States incident to the collection of foreign intelligence by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as part of the war on terror. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. ... “NSA” redirects here. ...

Traffic cameras, installed in 18 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. and meant to help enforce traffic laws at intersections, have also sparked some controversy.^[5] There have been reports that the NSA has been gathering information on financial records, internet surfing habits, monitoring e-mails, and surveillance on social networks such as Myspace.^[6] A red-light camera in use in Beaverton, Oregon, USA A road rule enforcement camera is a system including a camera and a vehicle-monitoring device used to detect and identify vehicles disobeying a speed limit or other road rule. ... For other uses, see Washington, D.C. (disambiguation). ...

The NYPD infiltrated and compiled dossiers on protest groups before the 2004 Republican National Convention, leading to over 1,800 arrests and subsequent fingerprinting. This is a direct attack on political dissent and the city lost an appeal before a federal judge to prevent release of the documents. ^[7]

If you were in Las Vegas in the last two weeks of 2003, the FBI probably collected your hotel, airline, rental car, gift shop, and casino records. The FBI requested all electronic data of hundreds of thousands of people based on a very general lead for the Las Vegas New Year's celebration. The Senior VP of the Mirage went on record with PBS' Frontline describing the first time they were requested to help in the mass collection of personal information.^[8]

East Germany

Before the Digital Revolution, one of the world's biggest mass surveillance operations was carried out by the Stasi, the secret police of the former East Germany. By the time the state collapsed in 1989, the Stasi had built up an estimated civilian network of 300,000 informants (approximately one in fifty of the population), who monitored even minute hints of political dissent among other citizens. Many West Germans visiting friends and family in East Germany were also subject to Stasi spying, as well as many high-ranking West German politicians and persons in the public eye. Logo of East Germanys Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS or Stasi) / Ministry for State Security This article is about Stasi, the secret police of East Germany. ... This article is about secret police as organizations. ... This article is about the state which existed from 1949 to 1990. ... Year 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar). ... West Germany was the informal but almost universally used name for the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 until 1990, during which years the Federal Republic did not yet include East Germany. ...

Most East German citizens were well aware that their government was spying on them, which led to a culture of mistrust: touchy political issues were only discussed in the comfort of their own four walls and only with the closest of friends and family members, while widely maintaining a façade of unquestioning followership in public.

Literature and movies critical of mass surveillance

• Nineteen Eighty-Four, a novel by George Orwell depicting life under an omnipresent totalitarian state, and is probably the most prominent of the media listed; the 'Big Brother' who watches over the novel's characters is now used to describe any form of spying on or interfering with the public, such as CCTV cameras.
• The Transparent Society by David Brin, discusses various scenarios for the future considering the spread of cheap web-cameras, increases in government security initiatives, and the possible death of encryption if quantum computing becomes reality.
• The Minority Report, a story by Philip K. Dick about a society that arrests people for crimes they have yet to commit (made into a movie in 2002).
• Oath of Fealty, a 1982 novel by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle describing a large arcology whose dwellers and visitors are constantly being of surveiled by a variety of technologies
• Blue Thunder, 1983 movie starring Roy Scheider
• Brazil, a film by Terry Gilliam depicting an oppressive total information awareness society
• Pizza, a short film by ACLU depicting ordering pizza by phone in a Total Surveillance Society.
• Discipline and Punish by the critical theorist Michel Foucault is generally taken as being one of the paradigmatic works on theories of surveillance and discipline
• Enemy of the State, 1998 film about the use of surveillance and the powers it provides a corrupt politician who could track a person who has evidence of a politically motivated crime that would expose a murder.
• Equilibrium, 2002 film wherein a dystopic future society surviving the third world war takes an emotion-suppressing drug named "prozium" and where the general public is constantly watched by the Grammaton Clerics to make sure that no one breaks the equilibrium.
• V for Vendetta, graphic novel (as well as the film of the same name) about a future-day England that has transformed into a totalitarian state. A hero that embodies the idea of anarchism emerges.

This article is about the Orwell novel. ... Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 [1] [2] – 21 January 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. ... Big Brother as portrayed in the BBCs 1954 production of Nineteen Eighty-Four. ... The Transparent Society (1998, ISBN 0-7382-0144-8, ISBN 020132802X) is a non-fiction book by the science-fiction author David Brin in which he forecasts the erosion of privacy, as it is overtaken by low-cost surveillance, communication and database technology. ... Glen David Brin, Ph. ... Molecule of alanine used in NMR implementation of error correction. ... Minority Report can refer to: Minority Report, a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick Minority Report, a movie very loosely adapted from the initial storyline of Dicks short story Minority Report, a video game based on the movie Minority Report, an unrelated science fiction short story by... Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American writer, mostly known for his works of science fiction. ... Minority Report is a 2002 science fiction film directed by Steven Spielberg, loosely based on the Philip K. Dick 1956 short story The Minority Report. It is set in the year 1895, when criminals are interviewed based on foreknowledge. ... Also see: 2002 (number). ... Oath of Fealty is a 1982 novel by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Jerry Eugene Pournelle, Ph. ... The Try2004 Hyperstructure or Megacity as featured on the Discovery Channels Extreme Engineering programs. ... For other uses, see Blue Thunder (disambiguation). ... Roy Richard Scheider (born November 10, 1932 in Orange, New Jersey) is an Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-nominated American actor. ... Terrence Vance Gilliam (born November 22, 1940) is an American-born British filmmaker, animator, and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. ... The American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, is a non_governmental organization devoted to defending civil rights and civil liberties in the United States. ... Discipline and Punish (subtitled The Birth of the Prison) is a book written by the philosopher Michel Foucault. ... Michel Foucault (pronounced ) (October 15, 1926 – June 25, 1984) was a French philosopher, historian and sociologist. ... Enemy of the State is a 1998 film written by David Marconi, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and directed by Tony Scott, and starring Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight, Lisa Bonet and Regina King. ... Equilibrium is a 2002 action/science fiction film written and directed by Kurt Wimmer. ... This article is about the comic book series. ... V for Vendetta is a 2006 action-thriller film set in London, England in a near-future dystopian society. ...

Literature and movies praising mass surveillance

• The Light of Other Days is a science-fiction book that praises mass surveillance, under the condition that it is available to everyone. It shows a world in which a total lack of privacy results in a decrease in corruption and crime.
• Digital Fortress, novel by Dan Brown, involving an NSA codebreaking machine called 'TRANSLATR', reading and decrypting email messages, with which the NSA allegedly foiled terrorist attacks and mass murders.

The Light of Other Days is a 2000 science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter. ... Digital Fortress is a novel by American author Dan Brown and published in 1998 by St. ... This article is about the writer. ... NSA can stand for: National Security Agency of the USA The British Librarys National Sound Archive This page concerning a three-letter acronym or abbreviation is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

See also

• NSA call database
• Criticisms of the War on Terrorism
• Data retention
• Network analysis
• Telephone tapping
• Traffic analysis
• Nineteen Eighty-Four novel by George Orwell
  • Big Brother (1984)
• Government databases
• Panopticon
• Pen register
• RFID tagging
• SIGINT
• Narus: supplier of SIGINT system, NarusInsight, referred to in Hepting vs. AT&T
• Vehicle telematics
• USA PATRIOT Act
• Data privacy
• Computer ethics
• Right to privacy
• ECHELON
• HUMINT
• National security
• Lawful interception
• Security culture

The NSA call database is a reported database of telephone calls created by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) with the cooperation of four of the largest telephone carriers in the United States: AT&T, SBC, Verizon and BellSouth. ... Criticisms of the War on Terrorism addresses the issues, morals, ethics, efficiency, and other questions surrounding the War on Terrorism. Arguments are also made against the phrase itself, calling it a misnomer. ... // Definition Data retention is the storage of telephony and internet traffic and transaction data by governments and commercial organisations. ... Network analysis is the analysis of networks through network theory (or more generally graph theory). ... Telephone tapping (or wire tapping/wiretapping in the US) is the monitoring of telephone and Internet conversations by a third party, often by covert means. ... Traffic analysis is the process of intercepting and examining messages in order to deduce information from patterns in communication. ... This article is about the Orwell novel. ... Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 [1] [2] – 21 January 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. ... Big Brother as portrayed in the BBCs 1954 production of Nineteen Eighty-Four. ... Government databases collect personal information for various reasons (mass surveillance, Schengen Information System in the European Union, Social Security, statistics, etc. ... Panopticon blueprint by Jeremy Bentham, 1791 The Panopticon is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the late eighteenth century. ... A pen register is an electronic device that records all numbers dialed from a particular telephone line. ... An EPC RFID tag used for Wal-Mart Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an automatic identification method, relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or transponders. ... SIGINT stands for SIGnals INTelligence, which is intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether by radio interception or other means. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Hepting vs. ... The term telematics is used in a number of ways: The integrated use of telecommunications and informatics, also known as ICT (Information and Communications Technology). ... In the United States, the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (Public Law 107-56), known as the USA PATRIOT Act or simply the Patriot Act, is an Act of Congress which President George W. Bush signed into law... Data privacy refers to the evolving relationship between technology and the legal right to, or public expectation of privacy in the collection and sharing of data. ... Computer ethics is a branch of practical philosophy which deals with how computing professionals should make decisions regarding professional and social conduct. ... The right to privacy is a purported human right and an element of various legal traditions which may restrain both government and private party action. ... Look up echelon in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... HUMINT, a syllabic abbreviation of the words HUMan INTelligence, is a category of intelligence gathering disciplines that encompasses all gathering of intelligence by means of interpersonal contact. ... Security measures taken to protect the Houses of Parliament in London, England. ... Lawful interception (aka wiretapping) is the interception of telecommunications by law enforcement authorities (LEAs) and intelligence services, in accordance with local law and after following due process and receiving proper authorization from competent authorities. ... A security culture is a set of customs shared by a community whose members may engage in illegal activities, the practice of which minimizes the risks of such activities. ...

External links

• Tracks developments as the US and world speed toward a Big Brother society
• BBC: Is business the real Big Brother?
• The UK House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee's report into ID cards
• Bigger databases...could also mean more unwelcome intervention
• Telegraph Online report: Council plans to listen in on street life
• Minnesota CriMNet Department of Public Safety Bureau of Criminal Apprehension databases
• Orwellian world news
• "Every Movement Scrutinized", Stirred Up Magazine
• Chicago Reader article about Police Surveillance and Murder
• Leading surveillance societies in the world

For other uses, see BBC (disambiguation). ... The Home Affairs Select Committee is a Committee of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. ...

References

1. ^ "UK phone records to be kept for a year". Retrieved on 2007-10-04. 
2. ^ http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
3. ^ http://eff.org/legal/cases/att/SER_klein_exhibits.pdf
4. ^ http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2007_06.php
5. ^ http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/driving/articles/42961/article.html
6. ^ http://news.com.com/2061-10789_3-6082047.html
7. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/nyregion/07police.html?ref=nationalspecial3
8. ^ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/etc/script.html

• Edward Higgs The Development of Central State Surveillance of the Citizen in England, 1500 - 2000
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• Videos and Info