# Surveillance Trust Externality **Entity class:** Security-cost concept **Domains:** Public-health surveillance / sensing / institutional trust ## Definition The **surveillance trust externality** is the loss of future sensing capacity caused when surveillance data are misused, migrated, or perceived as exposed to unrelated purposes. Populations respond by withholding data, disabling sensors and apps, avoiding engagement, or supplying less reliable information. An abuse today lowers the resolution of the next pandemic or security event, so this harm returns as first-error-function risk. ## Documented record A U.S. survey of 6,284 adults published in *JAMA Network Open* (2021) found generally low approval for COVID-19 digital-data uses and concluded that public-health authorities need trust-building strategies to secure adoption of digital contact tracing. A longitudinal British study in *BMJ Open* (2022) found privacy concerns and beliefs about third-party access associated with non-use, trust in government predictive of later adoption, and perceived lack of transparent evidence contributing to abandonment of the NHS app. ## Relationships - **cause:** [[wiki/Surveillance Purpose Migration|Surveillance Purpose Migration]]. - **trust layer:** [[wiki/Institutional Trust|Institutional Trust]] and [[wiki/Trust Restoration|Trust Restoration]]. - **sensing layer:** [[wiki/Digital Contact Tracing|Digital Contact Tracing]] and [[wiki/Biosurveillance|Biosurveillance]]. - **accounting frame:** [[wiki/The Second Error Function|The Second Error Function]]. - **analysis:** [[research/Harms Incurred While Bringing Preventive Systems Online|Harms Incurred While Bringing Preventive Systems Online]]. - **collection:** [[collections/Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and the Intelligence Environment|Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and the Intelligence Environment]]. ## Sources / Provenance - [JAMA Network Open — Consumer views on using digital data for COVID-19 control](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2779953) (2021). - [BMJ Open — longitudinal study of NHS COVID-19 app adoption and abandonment](https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/1/e053327) (2022). **As of:** 2026-09-23