List of government mass surveillance projects

Last updated

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

Contents

International

Snapshot of Boundless Informant's global map of data collection Boundless Informant data collection - DNI.jpg
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

China

France

DGSE base near Domme in southwestern France EMERAUDE - Domme.jpg
DGSE base near Domme in southwestern France

Germany

India

Russia

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. Verizon court order FBI.jpg
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

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court</span> U.S. federal court

The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), also called the FISA Court, is a U.S. federal court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) to oversee requests for surveillance warrants against foreign spies inside the United States by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GCHQ</span> British signals intelligence agency

Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primarily based at "The Doughnut" in the suburbs of Cheltenham, GCHQ is the responsibility of the country's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, but it is not a part of the Foreign Office and its director ranks as a Permanent Secretary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Security Agency</span> U.S. signals intelligence organization

The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, specializing in a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). The NSA is also tasked with the protection of U.S. communications networks and information systems. The NSA relies on a variety of measures to accomplish its mission, the majority of which are clandestine. The NSA has roughly 32,000 employees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surveillance</span> Monitoring something for the purposes of influencing, protecting, or suppressing it

Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing, or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as closed-circuit television (CCTV), or interception of electronically transmitted information like Internet traffic. Increasingly, governments may also obtain consumer data through the purchase of online information, effectively expanding surveillance capabilities through commercially available digital records. It can also include simple technical methods, such as human intelligence gathering and postal interception.

Computer and network surveillance is the monitoring of computer activity and data stored locally on a computer or data being transferred over computer networks such as the Internet. This monitoring is often carried out covertly and may be completed by governments, corporations, criminal organizations, or individuals. It may or may not be legal and may or may not require authorization from a court or other independent government agencies. Computer and network surveillance programs are widespread today and almost all Internet traffic can be monitored.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MUSCULAR</span> Joint UK and USA surveillance program

MUSCULAR (DS-200B), located in the United Kingdom, is the name of a surveillance program jointly operated by Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) that was revealed by documents released by Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials. GCHQ is the primary operator of the program. GCHQ and the NSA have secretly broken into the main communications links that connect the data centers of Yahoo! and Google. Substantive information about the program was made public at the end of October 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mass surveillance</span> Intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population

Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organizations, but it may also be carried out by corporations. Depending on each nation's laws and judicial systems, the legality of and the permission required to engage in mass surveillance varies. It is the single most indicative distinguishing trait of totalitarian regimes. It is often distinguished from targeted surveillance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Project MINARET</span> National Security Agency surveillance operation

Project MINARET was a domestic espionage project operated by the National Security Agency (NSA), which, after intercepting electronic communications that contained the names of predesignated US citizens, passed them to other government law enforcement and intelligence organizations. Intercepted messages were disseminated to the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), and the Department of Defense. The project was a sister project to Project SHAMROCK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Five Eyes</span> Intelligence alliance

The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an Anglosphere intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries are party to the multilateral UK-USA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence. Informally, "Five Eyes" can refer to the group of intelligence agencies of these countries. The term "Five Eyes" originated as shorthand for a "AUS/CAN/NZ/UK/US Eyes Only" (AUSCANNZUKUS) releasability caveat.

Mastering the Internet (MTI) is a mass surveillance project led by the British communications intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) budgeted at over £1 billion. According to reports in The Register and The Sunday Times in early May 2009, contracts with a total value of £200m had already been awarded to suppliers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Utah Data Center</span> NSA data storage facility

The Utah Data Center (UDC), also known as the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center, is a data storage facility for the United States Intelligence Community that is designed to store data estimated to be on the order of exabytes or larger. Its purpose is to support the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), though its precise mission is classified. The National Security Agency (NSA) leads operations at the facility as the executive agent for the Director of National Intelligence. It is located at Camp Williams near Bluffdale, Utah, between Utah Lake and Great Salt Lake and was completed in May 2014 at a cost of $1.5 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tailored Access Operations</span> Unit of the U.S. National Security Agency

The Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO), now Computer Network Operations, and structured as S32, is a cyber-warfare intelligence-gathering unit of the National Security Agency (NSA). It has been active since at least 1998, possibly 1997, but was not named or structured as TAO until "the last days of 2000," according to General Michael Hayden.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PRISM</span> Mass surveillance program run by the NSA

PRISM is a code name for a program under which the United States National Security Agency (NSA) collects internet communications from various U.S. internet companies. The program is also known by the SIGAD US-984XN. PRISM collects stored internet communications based on demands made to internet companies such as Google LLC and Apple under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to turn over any data that match court-approved search terms. Among other things, the NSA can use these PRISM requests to target communications that were encrypted when they traveled across the internet backbone, to focus on stored data that telecommunication filtering systems discarded earlier, and to get data that is easier to handle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">XKeyscore</span> Mass surveillance system

XKeyscore is a secret computer system used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) for searching and analyzing global Internet data, which it collects in real time. The NSA has shared XKeyscore with other intelligence agencies, including the Australian Signals Directorate, Canada's Communications Security Establishment, New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau, Britain's Government Communications Headquarters, Japan's Defense Intelligence Headquarters, and Germany's Bundesnachrichtendienst.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mass surveillance in the United States</span>

The practice of mass surveillance in the United States dates back to wartime monitoring and censorship of international communications from, to, or which passed through the United States. After the First and Second World Wars, mass surveillance continued throughout the Cold War period, via programs such as the Black Chamber and Project SHAMROCK. The formation and growth of federal law-enforcement and intelligence agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA institutionalized surveillance used to also silence political dissent, as evidenced by COINTELPRO projects which targeted various organizations and individuals. During the Civil Rights Movement era, many individuals put under surveillance orders were first labelled as integrationists, then deemed subversive, and sometimes suspected to be supportive of the communist model of the United States' rival at the time, the Soviet Union. Other targeted individuals and groups included Native American activists, African American and Chicano liberation movement activists, and anti-war protesters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2010s global surveillance disclosures</span> Disclosures of NSA and related global espionage

During the 2010s, international media reports revealed new operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance of both foreign and domestic nationals. The reports mostly relate to top secret documents leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents consist of intelligence files relating to the U.S. and other Five Eyes countries. In June 2013, the first of Snowden's documents were published, with further selected documents released to various news outlets through the year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Origins of global surveillance</span>

The origins of global surveillance can be traced back to the late 1940s, when the UKUSA Agreement was jointly enacted by the United Kingdom and the United States, whose close cooperation eventually culminated in the creation of the global surveillance network, code-named "ECHELON", in 1971.

This is a category of disclosures related to global surveillance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Global surveillance</span> Mass surveillance across national borders

Global mass surveillance can be defined as the mass surveillance of entire populations across national borders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of global surveillance disclosures (2013–present)</span>

This timeline of global surveillance disclosures from 2013 to the present day is a chronological list of the global surveillance disclosures that began in 2013. The disclosures have been largely instigated by revelations from the former American National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

References

  1. Welcome to INDECT homepage – indect-home. 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. 1 2 3 "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. Archived from the original on 7 February 2016. 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. 1 2 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. 1 2 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 "", 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.