List of government mass surveillance projects

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

This is a list of government surveillance projects and related databases throughout the world.

International

Snapshot of Boundless Informant's global map of data collection

European Union

Former

  • Data Retention Directive: A defunct directive requiring EU member states to store citizens' telecommunications data for six to 24 months and allowing police and security agencies to request access from a court to details such as IP address and time of use of every email, phone call, and text message sent or received.
  • INDECT: Was a research project (until 2014) funded by the European Union to develop surveillance methods (e.g. processing of CCTV camera data streams) for the monitoring of abnormal behaviours in an urban environment.[1]

Current (as per 2024)

National

Australia

  • In August 2014 it was reported[2] that law-enforcement agencies had been accessing Australians' web browsing histories via internet providers such as Telstra without a warrant.
  • It was reported[3] that Australia had issued 75% more wiretap warrants in 2003 than the US did and this was 26 times greater than the US on a per capita basis.

China

France

DGSE base near Domme in southwestern France

Germany

India

Russia

  • Gratitude of the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for the Volkhov region of the organization Perspective Scientific Research Development for the creation of the "CAMERTON" system.
    Gratitude of the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for the Volkhov region of the organization Perspective Scientific Research Development for the creation of the "CAMERTON" system.
    SORM: A technical system used by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation to monitor internet and telephone communication.
  • Certificate of state registration of the "tracking" program for a computer - "СAMERTON".
    Certificate of state registration of the "monitoring, control, tracking the target of ground vehicles" - "СAMERTON".
    СAMERTON: Is a global vehicle tracking system, control and tracking, identification of probable routes and places of the most frequent appearance of a particular vehicle, integrated with a distributed network of radar complexes of photo-video fixation and road surveillance camera.[16] Developed and implemented by the "Advanced Scientific - Research Projects" enterprise St. Petersburg.[17] Within the framework of the practical use of the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, it has made it possible to identify and solve grave and especially grave crimes, the system is also operated by other state services and departments;
  • Yarovaya Law is a piece of anti-terrorist legislation that includes a requirement to store all phone call and text messaging data, as well as providing cryptographic backdoors for security services.

Sweden

Switzerland

United Kingdom

United States

A top secret document leaked by Edward Snowden to The Guardian in 2013, originally due to be declassified on 12 April 2038.

Unclear origin

Recently discontinued

See also

References

  1. ^ Welcome to INDECT homepage – indect-home. [1] Archived 8 January 2011 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 16 June 2013.
  2. ^ Ben Grubb (20 August 2014). "Telstra found divulging web browsing histories to law-enforcement agencies without a warrant". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  3. ^ "Wiretapping Australia". 2003. Archived from the original on 21 August 2014. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
  4. ^ a b c "How China's Internet Police Control Speech on the Internet". Radio Free Asia. Retrieved 11 June 2013. China's police authorities spent the three years between 2003 and 2006 completing the massive "Golden Shield Project". Not only did over 50 percent of China's policing agencies get on the Internet, there is also an agency called the Public Information Network Security and Monitoring Bureau, which boasts a huge number of technologically advanced and well-equipped network police. These are all the direct products of the Golden Shield Project.
  5. ^ Josh Rogin (2 August 2018). "Ethnic cleansing makes a comeback – in China". No. Washington Post. Archived from the original on 31 March 2019. Retrieved 4 August 2018. Add to that the unprecedented security and surveillance state in Xinjiang, which includes all-encompassing monitoring based on identity cards, checkpoints, facial recognition and the collection of DNA from millions of individuals. The authorities feed all this data into an artificial-intelligence machine that rates people's loyalty to the Communist Party in order to control every aspect of their lives.
  6. ^ "China: Big Data Fuels Crackdown in Minority Region: Predictive Policing Program Flags Individuals for Investigations, Detentions". hrw.org. Human Rights Watch. 26 February 2018. Retrieved 4 August 2018.
  7. ^ Vincent, Alice (15 December 2017). "Black Mirror is coming true in China, where your 'rating' affects your home, transport and social circle". The Daily Telegraph.
  8. ^ "The complicated truth about China's social credit system". Wired UK. ISSN 1357-0978. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
  9. ^ Mok, Katie Canales, Aaron. "China's 'social credit' system ranks citizens and punishes them with throttled internet speeds and flight bans if the Communist Party deems them untrustworthy". Business Insider. Retrieved 7 January 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ "The Social Credit System: Not Just Another Chinese Idiosyncrasy". Journal of Public and International Affairs. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
  11. ^ "La France se met à l'espionnage" (in French). Free (ISP). Retrieved 11 June 2013. Frenchelon (ou French Echelon) est le surnom donné au réseau d'écoute de la DGSE. Le véritable nom de ce système d'écoute n'est pas connu (contrairement à ce que nous expliquions, ce n'est pas Emeraude)
  12. ^ "Datenschutzbeauftragte warnen vor Volltextsuche bei Verfassungsschutz und Polizei" (in German). Heise Online. 5 November 2010. Retrieved 20 December 2013.
  13. ^ Matthias Gebauer; Hubert Gude; Veit Medick; Jörg Schindler; Fidelius Schmid. "CIA Worked With BND and BfV in Neuss on Secret Project". Der Spiegel. Retrieved 20 December 2013.
  14. ^ "India's centralised monitoring system comes under scanner, reckless and irresponsible usage is chilling". Daily News and Analysis. Retrieved 12 June 2013.
  15. ^ "India sets up elaborate system to tap phone calls, e-mail". Reuters. 20 June 2013. Retrieved 28 June 2013. The new system will allow the government to listen to and tape phone conversations, read e-mails and text messages, monitor posts on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn and track searches on Google of selected targets, according to interviews with two other officials involved in setting up the new surveillance programme, human rights activists and cyber experts.
  16. ^ "What is "professionalitet", how it will be useful for a student, a specialist and the labor market". Website about business and economics (in Russian). Retrieved 15 October 2021.
  17. ^ "Digital-Report" - information and analytical magazin (12 August 2021). "Saboteur developers: pests at work and how to find them". Digital Report (in Russian). Retrieved 15 October 2021.
  18. ^ "TITAN: A TRAFFIC MEASUREMENT SYSTEM USING IMAGE PROCESSING TECHNIQUES. SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ROAD TRAFFIC MONITORING". Institution of Electrical Engineers.
  19. ^ Nyheter, SVT. "FRA har tillgång till kontroversiellt övervakningssystem".
  20. ^ "Big Brother Awards Schweiz: Onyx zum zweiten" (in German). Heise.de. 27 October 2001. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
  21. ^ "THE IMPACT NOMINAL INDEX (INI)". Warwickshire Police. Archived from the original on 8 July 2013. Retrieved 24 June 2013.
  22. ^ Williams, Christopher (7 October 2008). "Spy chiefs plot £12bn IT spree for comms überdatabase". The Register.
  23. ^ MacAskill, Ewen; Borger, Julian; Hopkins, Nick (21 June 2013). "GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world's communications". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 21 June 2013. This includes recordings of phone calls, the content of email messages, entries on Facebook and the history of any internet user's access to websites – all of which is deemed legal, even though the warrant system was supposed to limit interception to a specified range of targets.
  24. ^ a b Wallace, Helen (2006). "The UK National DNA Database: Balancing crime detection, human rights and privacy". EMBO Reports. 7 (Spec No). Science and Society: S26–S30. doi:10.1038/sj.embor.7400727. PMC 1490298. PMID 16819445.
  25. ^ MacAskill, Ewen; Borger, Julian; Hopkins, Nick (21 June 2013). "GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world's communications". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 21 June 2013.
  26. ^ Poitras, Laura; Marcel Rosenbach; Holger Stark (17 November 2013). "'Royal Concierge': GCHQ Monitors Hotel Reservations to Track Diplomats". Spiegel. Retrieved 17 November 2013.
  27. ^ Burgess, Matt (11 March 2021). "The UK is secretly testing a controversial web snooping tool". Wired UK. ISSN 1357-0978. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
  28. ^ "Meet 'Boundless Informant,' the NSA's Secret Tool for Tracking Global Surveillance Data". The Atlantic. Retrieved 13 June 2013. The country where the largest amount of intelligence was gathered was, unsurprisingly, Iran: Boundless Informant shows more than 14 billion reports in that period. The second-largest collection came from Pakistan, with 13.5 billion reports. Jordan -- which is, yes, one of America's closest Arab allies -- had 12.7 billion reports. Egypt came in fourth (7.6 billion reports), and India in fifth with 6.3 billion. And when it comes to the U.S.? "The Boundless Informant documents show the agency collecting almost 3 billion pieces of intelligence from US computer networks over a 30-day period ending in March 2013."
  29. ^ Point, Click ... Eavesdrop: How the FBI Wiretap Net Operates.
  30. ^ "FBI Has a Magic Lantern". Usgovinfo.about.com. Retrieved 23 February 2009.
  31. ^ a b Shorrock, Tim (23 July 2008). "Exposing Bush's historic abuse of power". Salon.com. Retrieved 19 December 2010.
  32. ^ Maass, Poitras (10 October 2014). "Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany". The Intercept. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  33. ^ Lichtblau, Eric (28 February 2001). "Spy Suspect May Have Revealed U.S. Bugging; Espionage: Hanssen left signs that he told Russia where top-secret overseas eavesdropping devices are placed, officials say". Los Angeles Times. p. A1. Archived from the original on 17 April 2001.
  34. ^ Riley, Michael (23 May 2013). "How the U.S. Government Hacks the World". Bloomberg Businessweek. Archived from the original on 25 May 2013. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
  35. ^ Aid, Matthew M. (8 June 2010). The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency. Bloomsbury USA. p. 311. ISBN 978-1-60819-096-6. Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  36. ^ Blustein, Paul, Gellman, Barton, and Linzer, Dafna. "Bank Records Secretly Tapped", Washington Post, 23 June 2006. Accessed 23 June 2006.
  37. ^ Thomas Drake on The Real News "[2]", The Real News, 3 August 2015. Accessed 19 August 2015.
  38. ^ Trenholm, Rich. "NSA to Store Yottabytes in Utah Data Centre". CNET. Archived from the original on 23 June 2013. Retrieved 13 June 2013.
  39. ^ Bamford, James (15 March 2012). "The NSA Is Building the Country's Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)". Wired. Retrieved 5 April 2012.
  40. ^ Kenyon, Henry (7 January 2011). "New NSA data center breaks ground on construction -- Defense Systems". Defense Systems. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
  41. ^ Markoff, John (28 March 2009). "Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 March 2009.
  42. ^ Robert McMillan (16 September 2010). "Siemens: Stuxnet worm hit industrial systems". Computerworld. Archived from the original on 25 May 2012. Retrieved 16 September 2010.
  43. ^ Nakashima, Ellen; Warrick, Joby (3 June 2012). "Stuxnet was work of U.S. and Israeli experts, officials say". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 1 January 2013. Retrieved 11 June 2013. The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the classified effort code-named Olympic Games, said it was first developed during the George W. Bush administration and was geared toward damaging Iran's nuclear capability gradually while sowing confusion among Iranian scientists about the cause of mishaps at a nuclear plant.