Surveillance Society
Definition
• The monitoring of the behavior, activities, or
other changing information, usually for the
purpose of influencing, managing, directing,
or protecting.
• Most usually involves observation of
individuals or groups by government
organizations.
Positive? Negative?
• Surveillance is useful to governments and law
enforcement to maintain social control,
recognize and monitor threats, and
prevent/investigate criminal activity.
• Civil rights groups are concerned that mass
surveillance will result in limited or nonexistent political and/or personal freedoms.
Types of Surveillance
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Computer surveillance
Telephones
Surveillance cameras
Social network analysis
Biometric surveillance
Aerial surveillance
Corporate surveillance
Types of Surveillance
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Human operatives
Satellite imagery
Identification and credentials
RFID and geolocation devices
RFID tagging
Global positioning system
Mobile phones
Surveillance devices
Postal services
Computer Surveillance
• Vast majority of computer surveillance
involves monitoring of data and traffic on the
Internet.
• Real-time monitoring by Federal law
enforcement agencies.
• “Trigger” words or phrases
• Visiting certain types of web sites
• Communicating with suspicious individuals or
groups
• FBI software - Magic Lantern and CIPAV can
be used to gain unauthorized access to data;
can be installed physically or remotely
• vanEck phreaking – reads electromagnetic
emanations remotely from computing devices
to extract data
• Pinwale – stores and indexes large numbers of
emails of American citizens and foreigners
Telephones
• Widespread official and unofficial wiretapping
• AT&T and Verizon are paid by the FBI to keep
records easily searchable and accessible
• Speech-to-text software creates machinereadable text from intercepted audio
• Technology available to US, UK governments to
remotely activate microphones in cell phones
• “Multilateration” of cell phone towers used to
collect location data from cell phone use
Surveillance Cameras
• Video cameras used to observe an area
• Connected to a recording device or IP network
• Automated software organizes digital video
footage into a searchable database
• Homeland Security grants in US enable cities
to install cameras and to connect them to
central monitoring center
• “Golden Shield Project” – US companies install
cameras, facial recognition software in China
to track individuals. Goal is to have a picture
of every person in China in central database.
• Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) funding research to link cameras to a
central monitoring station in a city
• Identix’s facial recognition software used at
Super Bowl 2001
• Traffic cameras in DC used for day-to-day
monitoring by DC police
• Trapwire - Closed Circuit TeleVision (CCTV)
cameras track people’s movements across city
Social Network Analysis
• Maps of social networks based on data from
Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, traffic analysis
information from phone call records
• These maps are “data mined” to extract
personal interests, friendships, affiliations,
beliefs, thoughts, activities.
• DARPA, National Security Agency (NSA),
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
invest in social network analysis.
• AT&T’s programming language “Hancock” sifts
through databases of phone call and Internet
traffic records.
• Employers report using social networking sites
to collect personal data on prospective or
current employees.
Biometric Surveillance
• Biometric surveillance measures and analyzes
human physical and/or behavioral
characteristics for authentication,
identification, or screening purposes.
• Fingerprints, DNA, facial patterns, voice
recognition, iris scanning, etc.
• Some technology can identify a person up to
500 ft. by facial features.
• Affective computing – computers recognize a
person’s emotional state based on analysis of
facial expressions, speed of talking, tone and
pitch of voice, posture, etc.
• DNA fingerprinting – analyzes major markers
in DNA to produce a match
• FBI spending $1 billion to build database for
people in US. Computers are in underground
facility as large as two football fields.
• Facial thermographs – identify fear, stress
Aerial Surveillance
• Aerial surveillance gathers visual imagery or
video from an airborne vehicle.
• Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), helicopter,
spy plane, micro-aerial vehicles (MAV),
forward-looking infrared devices.
• DHS testing UAVs to patrol US skies
• UK building up fleet of UAVs for its police
• MAVs can carry Tasers for crowd control or as
weapons
• DARPA programs automate much of the aerial
surveillance process.
• Self-piloting UAVs decide who is “suspicious,”
monitor them, coordinate with other UAVs,
notify human operators in centralized
monitoring station
• AI drones increase area that can be
continuously monitored, reducing number of
human operators
Data Mining and Profiling
• Data mining – application of statistical
techniques to discover relationships within
data
• Assemble data to create a profile, i.e., a
picture of patterns and behavior
• Economic and social transactions create data
• Web traffic and online purchases also used for
profiling
• Data analysis used by programs such as
ADVISE and TALON to determine whether the
person is a military, criminal, or political threat
• ADVISE – Analysis, Dissemination,
Visualization, Insight, Semantic Enhancement
R&D program authorized by DHS.
• TALON – Threat and Local Observation Notice,
activated after 9/11 by Dept. of Defense;
contains info on antiwar groups
• US is planning 43 “fusion centers”, a national
network of surveillance centers in over 30
states
• Fusion centers will collect, analyze data from
drivers’ licensing centers, hospital records,
criminal records, school records, credit
bureaus, banks, etc.
• Info will be placed in a centralized database
that can be accessed by all centers as well as
federal law enforcement and intelligence
agencies
Corporate Surveillance
• Monitoring of a person or group’s behavior by
a corporation
• Data usually used for marketing purposes
• Can be shared with government agencies
• Google stores identifying information for each
web search, scans content of Gmail webmail
service to tailor advertising
• Many US companies monitor e-mail traffic or
workers and/or Internet connections
• Companies use software to block non-work
related websites such as offensive sites, game
sites, social networking sites, entertainment
sites, shopping sites, and sports sites
• Some companies track keystrokes and time
spent at keyboards
• Infragard – FBI, DHS, corporations have
information-sharing partnership
Human Operatives
• Organizations that have enemies who wish to
gather information about the groups’
members or activities face the issue of
infiltration
• HUMINT – intelligence gathered by humans
rather than by electronic monitoring and data
mining
Satellite Imagery
• Local, state, and domestic Federal agencies
can access imagery from military intelligence
satellites and aircraft sensors
• These devices can penetrate cloud cover,
detect chemical traces, and identify objects in
buildings and underground bunkers
• Real-time video better than still images from
Google Earth
Identification and Credentials
• A card containing an identification number
• Some countries have national ID numbers
• IDs can be verified by passports, drivers’
licenses, library cards, banking or credit cards
• Machine-readable data can create an
electronic trail
RFID and Geolocation Devices
a. RFID Tagging
• Use of very small electronic devices applied or
incorporated into a product, animal, or person
for identification and tracking using radio
waves
• Some companies tag employees, who are
monitored while on job
• VeriChip (Applied Digital Solutions), injected
under skin, stores personal information in
“Global VeriChip Subscriber Registry”
b. Global Positioning System
• In US, police have planted hidden GPS tracking
devices in people’s vehicles to monitor their
movements
• Some cities require parolees to wear GPS
devices to track their movements when they
get out of prison
c. Mobile Phones
• Commonly used to collect geolocation data
• Multilateration – calculates the differences in
time for a signal to travel from the cell phone
to each of several cell towers near the owner
of the phone
d. Surveillance Devices
• “Bugs” are hidden electronic devices used to
capture, record, and/or transmit data to a
receiving party such as a law enforcement
agency
• COINTELPRO – US domestic intelligence
program bugged homes, office, vehicles of
political activists, subversives, criminals
e. Postal Services
• Significance of surveillance of postal system
decreasing in favor of Internet and telephone
surveillance
• Interception of mail is still option for law
enforcement
Controversy over Surveillance
Support
• These tools protect society from terrorists and
criminals
• People must become accustomed to having no
privacy
• “If you aren’t doing anything wrong, then you
don’t have anything to worry about.”
Opposition
• “As long as we do what we’re told, we have
nothing to fear.”
• Political activists do not want the government
to know their names
• Mass surveillance may make future opposition
impossible
• Most people do have things to hide, e.g., job
hunter may not want present employer to
know this
Opposition: Totalitarianism
• Fear that society is moving toward a state of
mass surveillance
• “Laying the bricks one at a time for a police
state.”
• Blurring of lines between public and private
places
• Surveillance techniques are not equal, e.g.,
facial recognition requires no cooperation
Opposition:
Psychological/Social Effects
• Creates in people a feeling of always being
watched, so they become self-policing
• The State can control the populace without
having to resort to physical force
Opposition: Privacy
• Civil rights groups include Electronic Privacy
Information Center, Electronic Frontier
Foundation, American Civil Liberties Union
• Lawsuits include Hepting v. AT&T, EPIC v.
Department of Justice
• The Church Committee investigated domestic
intelligence programs such as COINTELPRO
Counter-surveillance,
Inverse Surveillance, Sousveillance
• Counter-surveillance – avoiding surveillance or
making surveillance difficult
• Inverse surveillance – reversal of surveillance
on other individuals or groups, e.g., citizens
photographing police
• Sousveillance – inverse surveillance, involving
the recording by private individuals, rather
than government or corporate entities