the.com/surveillance
the art of watching everyone so closely that no one feels safe, including the watcher
means the close monitoring of a person, group, or place, often secretly, to gather information or maintain control
from Straight from the French surveillance, 'a watching over,' built from sur- ('over,' from Latin super) plus veiller ('to watch,' from Latin vigilare, 'to be awake or watchful' — the same vigilant root that keeps a vigil burning). The word entered English in the early 19th century, riding in on the paranoia of post-Revolutionary France, where committees kept anxious watch over suspected enemies of the state.
- word origin
- French for watching over, from sur plus veiller
- panopticon
- Bentham's prison design made invisible guards feel constant
- device count
- Over a billion CCTV cameras now watch worldwide
- phone tracking
- Your location can be sold hundreds of times daily
- sousveillance
- Watching the watchers back is its mirror term
panopticon — jeremy bentham's 1785 prison design where a single guard can observe all inmates without being seen
stasi — east german secret police that employed 189,000 informants to spy on 17 million citizens during the cold war
room 641a — at&t facility in san francisco revealed by edward snowden to be a hub for nsa mass surveillance of internet traffic
tianxun system — china's social credit system that monitors and rates citizens and businesses with public blacklists since 2013