Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Close observation of a person or group, especially one under suspicion.
  • noun The act of observing or the condition of being observed.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Oversight; superintendence; supervision; watch; spying.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Oversight; watch; inspection; supervision.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Close observation of an individual or group; person or persons under suspicion.
  • noun Continuous monitoring of disease occurrence for example.
  • noun military, espionage Systematic observation of places and people by visual, aural, electronic, photographic or other means.
  • noun law In criminal law, an investigation process by which police gather evidence about crimes, or suspected crime, through continued observation of persons or places.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun close observation of a person or group (usually by the police)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Borrowing from French surveillance ("a watching over, overseeing, supervision"), from surveiller ("to watch, oversee"), from sur- ("over") + veiller ("to watch"), from Middle French, from Old French veillier ("to stay awake"), from Latin vigilāre, present active infinitive of vigilō ("I am watchful"). More at vigilant.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word surveillance.

Examples

  • Google acted over dissident fears - Google realised dissidents were at risk from attempts to use company's technology for surveillance, say sources Google moved quickly to announce that it would stop censoring its Chinese ­service after realising dissidents were at risk from attempts to use the company's technology for political ­surveillance, according to a source with direct ­ ...

    Megite Technology News: What's Happening Right Now 2010

  • Balkin rejects the term surveillance, and breaks the term down into the collection of information (which is possible via many different means), the collation of information

    ...My heart's in Accra 2009

  • We feel that careful monitoring, what we call surveillance, looking for new diseases as they crop up anywhere in the world affects us anywhere else in the world.

    CNN Transcript - Special Event: Millennium 2000: Diseases That May Come and Go - January 1, 2000 2000

  • After moving, her family were periodically placed under what she described as surveillance.

    The Guardian World News James Robinson 2011

  • Defenders of online tracking argue that this kind of surveillance is benign because it is conducted anonymously.

    Facebook in Privacy Breach Emily Steel 2010

  • The word "surveillance" is in NEITHER Article I nor II -- consider it in the penumbra of "Commander in Chief" if that helps -- unless you are going to claim that no one in the U.S. government can legally spy on the enemy during wartime?!

    Balkinization 2007

  • Charles writes: The word "surveillance" is in NEITHER Article I nor II --

    Balkinization 2007

  • The word "surveillance" is in NEITHER Article I nor II -- consider it in the penumbra of "Commander in Chief" if that helps -- unless you are going to claim that no one in the U.S. government can legally spy on the enemy during wartime?!

    Balkinization 2007

  • The word "surveillance" is in NEITHER Article I nor II -- consider it in the penumbra of "Commander in Chief" if that helps -- unless you are going to claim that no one in the U.S. government can legally spy on the enemy during wartime?!

    Balkinization 2007

  • Charles writes: The word "surveillance" is in NEITHER Article I nor II --

    Balkinization 2007

  • Some wearers are propelled by the desire to opt out of what has been called “surveillance capitalism” — an economy that churns human experiences into data for profit — while others fear government invasion of privacy.

    Special sunglasses, license-plate dresses, Juggalo face paint: How to be anonymous in the age of surveillance Melissa Hellmann 2020

  • The latest version of this critique comes in the form of “surveillance capitalism,” a term coined by business professor Shoshana Zuboff in her long and influential 2019 book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.

    How to Destroy ‘Surveillance Capitalism’ Cory Doctorow 2021

  • Given the growing power of those algorithms, I wanted to find more about what Shoshana Zuboff calls “surveillance capitalism” – the myriad ways in which the “internet of things” and social media are selling our private lives to advertisers.

    Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez – a world designed for men Eliane Glaser 2019

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.