The surveillance state is a government's surveillance of large numbers of citizens and visitors. Such widespread surveillance is most usually justified as being necessary to prevent crime or terrorism.

The growth of state surveillance has led to concerns about the erosion of privacy

Privacy

Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...

 and civil liberties

Civil liberties

Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...

, and also to worries that over-reliance on such measures may lead to complacency by law enforcement officers.

Examples of fully realised surveillance states are the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, and the former East Germany, which had a large network of informers and an advanced technology base in computing & spy-camera technology. (Castells, M. The Rise of the Network Society, 2000)

But they did not have today's technologies for mass surveillance, such as the use of database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

s and pattern recognition

Pattern recognition

In machine learning, pattern recognition is the assignment of some sort of output value to a given input value , according to some specific algorithm. An example of pattern recognition is classification, which attempts to assign each input value to one of a given set of classes...

 software to cross-correlate information obtained by wire tapping, including speech recognition

Speech recognition

Speech recognition converts spoken words to text. The term "voice recognition" is sometimes used to refer to recognition systems that must be trained to a particular speaker—as is the case for most desktop recognition software...

 and telecommunications traffic analysis

Traffic analysis

Traffic analysis is the process of intercepting and examining messages in order to deduce information from patterns in communication. It can be performed even when the messages are encrypted and cannot be decrypted. In general, the greater the number of messages observed, or even intercepted and...

, monitoring of financial transactions, automatic number plate recognition

Automatic number plate recognition

Automatic number plate recognition is a mass surveillance method that uses optical character recognition on images to read the license plates on vehicles. They can use existing closed-circuit television or road-rule enforcement cameras, or ones specifically designed for the task...

, the tracking of the position of mobile telephones, and facial recognition system

Facial recognition system

A facial recognition system is a computer application for automatically identifying or verifying a person from a digital image or a video frame from a video source...

s and the like which recognise people by their appearance, gait

Gait (human)

Human gait is the way locomotion is achieved using human limbs. Different gaits are characterized by differences in limb movement patterns, overall velocity, forces, kinetic and potential energy cycles, and changes in the contact with the surface .- Foot strike :One variable in different gaits is...

, etc.

More recently, the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 is seen as a pioneer

Innovator

An innovator in a general sense, is a person or an organization who is one of the first to introduce into reality something better than before. That often opens up a new area for others and achieves an innovation.-History:...

 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.

The ability to gather information about citizens is increased by mandating new checks on paper-based records, such as increased checking of employees' qualifications and CV's

Résumé

A résumé is a document used by individuals to present their background and skillsets. Résumés can be used for a variety of reasons but most often to secure new employment. A typical résumé contains a summary of relevant job experience and education...

, and by the introduction of digitised biometric data in identity documents and their corresponding databases, and the cross-correlation of this data with DNA testing databases.

Some technological developments work in favour of the citizen rather than the state, especially communications software that uses strong encryption

Encryption

In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information...

.

Many advanced nation-states have implemented laws that partially protect citizens from unwarranted intrusion - such as the Data Protection Act 1998 in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, and laws that require a formal warrant before invading someone's privacy.

See also

• Police state
  Police state
  A police state is one in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic and political life of the population...
  
  
• Mass surveillance
  Mass surveillance
  Mass surveillance is the pervasive surveillance of an entire population, or a substantial fraction thereof.Modern governments today commonly perform mass surveillance of their citizens, explaining that they believe that it is necessary to protect them from dangerous groups such as terrorists,...
  
  
• Nineteen Eighty-Four
  Nineteen Eighty-Four
  Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
  
  
• Panopticon
  Panopticon
  The Panopticon is a type of building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late eighteenth century. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe all inmates of an institution without them being able to tell whether or not they are being watched...
  
  
• CCTV
  Closed-circuit television
  Closed-circuit television is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors....
  
  
• Fixing Broken Windows
  Fixing Broken Windows
  The broken windows theory is a criminological theory of the norm setting and signaling effect of urban disorder and vandalism on additional crime and anti-social behavior...
  
  

External links

• The State and Surveillance: Fear and Control A article by Didier Bigo and Mireille Delmas-Marty
• In favour of the citizen - an innovative use of google maps to plot Norwich City Council's entire CCTV network