Government surveillance definition

Collection of information by a country’s government for intelligence, threat monitoring and recognition, prevention and investigation of criminal activity, political information, or social control. It can be done by observing entire networks or social websites and processing the information or by tracking users individually.

Real government surveillance examples

The Five Eyes, a surveillance alliance formed between five countries after WW2, includes the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. They are united for the purpose of monitoring their internet users through ISPs and online trackers. They share their citizens’ online activity data to protect national security.

In China, the internet is fully controlled by the government. It tracks all websites, messages, search engines, and forums and uses keyword filtering to locate undesirable content and find the users who produced it.

Avoiding government surveillance

• Use privacy-oriented messaging services, email providers, search engines, and browsers.
• Use NordVPN to encrypt your internet connection so that no one can snoop on what you do online.

Further reading