# Dataveillance **Entity class:** Surveillance concept **Domain:** Information systems / privacy / intelligence analysis **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition **Dataveillance** is the systematic monitoring or investigation of people's actions or communications through information technology and personal data. Roger Clarke introduced the term in the 1980s to distinguish data-mediated monitoring from direct physical observation. The object of observation is the data trace—the person's transactional and informational shadow—rather than necessarily the body itself. Automated databases, networked systems and stable identifiers make dataveillance cheaper, more scalable and more recursive than traditional surveillance. Records collected for distinct purposes can be matched, scored and recombined to infer identity, association, movement or behavior. ## Counterterrorism and Ethical Limits Counterterrorism systems turn [[wiki/Digital Exhaust|Digital Exhaust]] into dataveillance when they systematically use those traces to monitor or investigate people and networks. [[wiki/ICEPIC|ICEPIC]], [[wiki/Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment|TIDE]], contact chaining, financial analysis and streaming graph systems occupy different parts of this design space. The analytic gain is the ability to detect patterns that no single record reveals. The corresponding risks are false association, opaque scoring, mission expansion, chilling effects, unequal error, and loss of the contextual boundaries under which data was originally collected. These are system properties to be measured and governed through provenance, access control, audit trails, minimization, retention rules, contestability and review. ## Relationships - **observes:** [[wiki/Digital Exhaust|Digital Exhaust]] and other personal-data traces. - **technical layer:** [[wiki/Real-Time Observability|Real-Time Observability]], [[wiki/Entity Resolution|Entity Resolution]] and [[wiki/Graph Analytics|Graph Analytics]]. - **relationship layer:** [[wiki/Identity and Relationship Analysis|Identity and Relationship Analysis]] and [[wiki/Contact Chaining|Contact Chaining]]. - **systems:** [[wiki/ICEPIC|ICEPIC]] and [[wiki/Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment|TIDE]]. - **governance:** [[wiki/Privacy Act of 1974|Privacy Act of 1974]] and [[wiki/Constitutional Safeguards|Constitutional Safeguards]]. ## Sources / Provenance - [Roger Clarke — “Information Technology and Dataveillance,” Communications of the ACM 31(5), 1988](https://www.rogerclarke.com/DV/CACM88.html) - [Australian National University — publication record for “Information Technology and Dataveillance”](https://researchportalplus.anu.edu.au/en/publications/information-technology-and-dataveillance/) - [IEEE Technology Navigator — Dataveillance](https://technav.ieee.org/topic/dataveillance/)