Traditionally, the concept of surveillance has been taken to mean an act of physical surveillance—e.g., following someone around or planting a secret camera in an apartment. As technology improved, our spy agencies and law enforcement institutions increasingly came to rely on even more sophisticated technical means of surveillance, and so we came to develop the capacity to electronically intercept telecommunications and examine email while in transit.
To these more traditional forms of surveillance, we must now add another: the collection and analysis of personal data and information about an individual. Call the phenomenon “dataveillance” if you wish, or “data mining,” but it is an inevitable product of our increasing reliance on the Internet and global communications systems. You leave an electronic trail almost everywhere you go in cyberspace. And you even leave a cyberspace trail, wherever you go in the “real” world – your cell phone logs your location almost everywhere you go.
What does it mean to live in a world where your digital trail can be followed by any cybertracker? Terrorists must look over their shoulders – but so do average citizens.