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Mass surveillance
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Mass surveillance is the pervasive surveillance of an entire population, or a substantial fraction thereof. Mass surveillance is used in varying contexts, and in some cases may occur regardless of whether or not consent of those under surveillance is given, and may or may not serve the interests of those whom are monitored.
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Encyclopedia
Mass surveillance is the pervasive surveillance of an entire population, or a substantial fraction thereof. Mass surveillance is used in varying contexts, and in some cases may occur regardless of whether or not consent of those under surveillance is given, and may or may not serve the interests of those whom are monitored. 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 groups that abuse said technology to realize potential gains at the expense of innocent life would be regarded as surveillance abuse.
State enforced
Privacy International's 2007 survey, covering 47 countries, indicated that there had been an increase in surveillance and a decline in the performance of privacy safeguards, compared to the previous year. Balancing these factors, eight countries were rated as being 'endemic surveillance societies'. Of these eight, China, Malaysia and Russia scored lowest, followed jointly by Singapore and the United Kingdom, then jointly by Taiwan, Thailand and the United States. The best ranking was given to Greece, which was judged to have 'adequate safeguards against abuse'.
Many countries throughout the world have already been adding thousands of surveillance cameras to their urban, suburban and even rural areas. For example, the American Civil Liberties Union have directly stated that "we are fast approaching a genuine surveillance society in the United States - a dark future where our every move, our every transaction, our every communication is recorded, compiled, and stored away, ready to be examined and used against us by the authorities whenever they want."
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom is seen as a pioneer of mass surveillance. At the end of 2006 it was described by the Surveillance Studies Network as being 'the most surveilled country' among the industrialized Western states.
On 6 February 2009 a report by the House of Lords Constitution Committee, Surveillance: Citizens and the State, warned that increasing use of surveillance by the government and private companies is a serious threat to freedoms and constitutional rights, stating that "The expansion in the use of surveillance represents one of the most significant changes in the life of the nation since the end of the Second World War. Mass surveillance has the potential to erode privacy. As privacy is an essential pre-requisite to the exercise of individual freedom, its erosion weakens the constitutional foundations on which democracy and good governance have traditionally been based in this country."
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). In 2004 the 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 were the National Child Database (ContactPoint), the Office for National Statistics' Citizen Information Project, and the NHS National Programme for IT.
CCTV networks
it was estimated that the United Kingdom was monitored by over 4.2 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 national identity 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 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.
Public transport
In London, the Oyster card payment system 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.
Communication
In 2008 plans were being made to collect data on all phone calls, emails, chatroom discussions and web-browsing habits as part of the Government's Interception Modernisation Programme, thought likely to require the insertion of 'thousands' of black box probes into the country’s computer and telephone networks. The proposals were expected to be included in the Communications Data Bill. The "giant database" would include telephone numbers dialed, the websites visited and addresses to which e-mails are sent "but not the content of e-mails or telephone conversations." Chris Huhne, Home affairs spokesman said: "The government's Orwellian plans for a vast database of our private communications are deeply worrying."
Since October 2007 telecommunication companies have been required to keep records of phone calls and text messages for twelve months under the Data Retention (EC Directive) Regulations Though all telecoms firms already keep data for a period, the regulations are designed to ensure a uniform approach across the industry. This enables the Government and other selected authorities within the UK such as Police and Councils amongst others to monitor all phone calls made from a UK landline or Mobile upon request.
In the period 11 April to 31 December 2006 the UK gov issued 253,557 requests for communication data, which as defined by the RIPA includes who you phoned, when they phoned you, how long they phoned you for, subscriber information and associated addresses.
In 2002 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 in 2005-2006.
Mobile phone tracking
Customers in shopping centres are being tracked by private companies. Utilising mobile phone signals, a system can tell when people enter the centre, how long they stay in a particular shop, and what route each customer takes. The system works by monitoring the signals produced by mobile handsets and then locating the phone by triangulation.
Vehicle tracking
Across the country efforts are increasingly under way 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).
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 - using new police powers to check identity. over the unregulated use of biometrics in schools, affecting children as young as three.
Overseas travel
In February 2009 it emerged that the government is planning a database to track and store records of all international travel into and out of the UK. The database will retain record of names, addresses, telephone numbers, seat reservations, travel itineraries and credit card details, which will be kept for 'no more than 10 years'.
United States
In early 2006, USA Today reported that several major telephone companies were cooperating illegally 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.
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.
The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) requires that all U.S. telecommunications companies modify their equipment to allow easy wiretapping of telephone, VoIP, and broadband internet traffic.
The Total Information Awareness program, of the Information Awareness Office, was started with the mission of designing numerous technologies to be used to perform mass surveillance. Examples include advanced speech-to-text programs (so that phone conversations can be monitored en-masse by a computer, instead of requiring human operators to listen to them), social network analysis software to monitor groups of people and their interactions with each other, and "Human identification at a distance" software which allows computers to recognize people's faces and gait (the way they walk) on surveillance cameras. The program was later renamed "Terrorism Information Awareness", after a negative public reaction.
Traffic cameras, which were meant to help enforce traffic laws at intersections, have also sparked some controversy, due to their use by law enforcement agencies for purposes unrelated to traffic violations.
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.
The NYPD infiltrated and compiled dossiers on protest groups (most of whom were doing nothing illegal) before the 2004 Republican National Convention, leading to over 1,800 arrests and subsequent fingerprinting.
The FBI collected nearly all hotel, airline, rental car, gift shop, and casino records in Las Vegas during the last two weeks of 2003. 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.
European Union
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.
Russia
The SORM (and SORM-2) laws enable complete monitoring of any communication, electronic or traditional, by eight state agencies, without warrant.
Germany & Netherlands
The Netherlands and Germany are reputed to have the highest levels of covert governmental mobile phone tapping. The article on telephone tapping states:
- "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.
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.
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.
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.
One of the most common forms of mass surveillance is carried out by commercial organizations. Many people are willing to join supermarket and grocery 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.
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.
- We, a little-known 1920 novel by Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin, that predates Nineteen Eighty-Four and was read by its author George Orwell.
- 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).
- THX 1138, a 1971 film by George Lucas depicting life in an underground dystopia where all human activities are monitored centrally at all times. A high level of control is exerted upon the populace through ever-present faceless, android police officers and mandatory, regulated use of special drugs to suppress emotion, including sexual desire. The film was first made as a student project in the University of Southern California and called Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB.
- 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 Flash video 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 and where the general public is constantly watched by the government to make sure that no one breaks the equilibrium.
- The Conversation, 1974 movie starring Gene Hackman.
- "Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance and the Culture of Control" by Social and Environmental philosopher, Derrick Jensen thoroughly examines the use of RFID chips, nanotechnology, military technology, science, and surveillance.
- The Listening, a 2006 movie in which a rogue NSA employee fights against the agency's Echelon system and one of its corporate partners.
- The Dark Knight, the 2008 summer blockbuster delved into whether the public security against the Joker's anarchy warranted Batman's mass scale spying on Gotham City's citizens using cell phone technology. Lucius Fox, Morgan Freeman's character, threatened to quit Wayne Enterprises over Batman's private surveillance of Gotham claiming that no one man should possess such power.
- Robocop
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 'TRANSLTR', reading and decrypting email messages, with which the NSA allegedly foiled terrorist attacks and mass murders.
See also
External links
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