Types of surveillance

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For those that wish to live free, surveillance and tracking is our primary nemesis. But in order to defeat our enemy, we must first understand it. Within this article, we will begin to analyse some of the most prominent methods of surveillance in use by modern actors.

Firstly, we must discuss that surveillance methods may be broadly grouped into two categories, with those being those of broad and targeted surveillance methods.

Broad surveillance is a collective term for a variety of methods employed by governments, law enforcement agencies and private corporations in order to collect, utilize and abuse personal information. This system relies on the collection, automated filtering and profiling of everyone in a given geographical area or that may utilize certain technological systems.

The primary intent of broad scale surveillance varies based on the actor responsible, but will likely have one of two primary objectives; to control a population, or to profiteer of them. The first, and most sinister of these aims, is imperative to understand if we wish to counter it. This system relies on the passive harvesting of our personal data, to see how we think, and to try to guide our actions. This system is generally undertaken via the state mandated interception and monitoring of all our digital and physical footprints. The governments can, and do watch everything we type, and everything we say within the digital world “for our own safety”. This passive method is used to control entire populations via subterfuge or the targeted removal of nonconforming individuals. For those of us that strive to maintain our personal freedoms and privacy, we must always be cognizant of these unethical aims. Whether currently overt, or covert, all nations are utilizing these techniques, for those in power, aim to stay in power.

The second major form of broad scale surveillance is that which is often undertaken by private companies in order to maximize their profits, and to ensure that we, as citizens, tow the desired lines. Here, we can imagine our tech overlords, such as Google and Facebook monitoring what we search for, how we type, how we talk to our loved ones, and force their ideal and products into our faces at any and every opportunity. By watching what we do, they can guess what we thing, and through the targeted selection and filtering of what we get to see, they are able to steer the general public into believing whatever they want them to believe.

These forms of broad scale surveillance are often reliant on the creation of digital profiles and foot-printing in order to function. The more that any single group knows about us, the more damaging the information becomes. As such, the aim to minimize the damage that may be caused from broad scale surveillance, is to ensure anonymity with both our online lives and our in person presences.

The broad scale surveillance networks are a terrifying prospect to behold, and are an ever present danger to those that wish to live free. However, the repercussions that they present pale in comparison to those that are presented from target surveillance programs.

Lets imagine for a moment, a fictional country. In this country the government in power want to stay in power, and they are willing to do anything to make that happen. First step, is they introduce laws to help prevent “terrorism”. These laws now allow the government to monitor everything that their population says and does. But lets be real, a government’s employees can’t monitor everyone. The more extreme the regime, the less agents that can realistically be trusted to preform close surveillance, therefore, the majority of surveillance undertaken against the population will be via automated, broad scale surveillance methods. However, if the automated methods determine that an individual is a high priority threat, and they have the available resources, they may begin targeted surveillance.

For us, the best case scenario if we are under targeted surveillance is we loose all of our hard earned freedoms. The alternative, is that a tyrannical regime doesn’t want to waste the resources on surveillance, and either imprisons, or executes you. The techniques utilized during targeted surveillance vary by organization, nation and their intent.


In following articles, we will explore specific techniques employed during targeted surveillance, and how to counter them. Likewise we will be exploring techniques to combat broad scale surveillance and tracking.


For further reading, here is a previous article about why we need privacy:
Privacy and why we need it


Stay safe, until we meet again,
Mr. Anon

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