List of government mass surveillance projects
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This is a list of government surveillance projects and related databases throughout the world.


International

*
ECHELON ECHELON, originally a secret government code name, is a surveillance program (signals intelligence/SIGINT collection and analysis network) operated by the five signatory states to the UKUSA Security Agreement:Given the 5 dialects that use ...
: A
signals intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ( ...
(SIGINT) collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states to the UKUSA Security Agreement.


European Union

*
Data Retention Directive The Data Retention Directive (Directive 2006/24/EC), a directive, later declared invalid by the European Court of Justice, was at first passed on 15 March 2006 and regulated data retention, where data has been generated or processed in connect ...
: A directive requiring EU member states to store citizens' telecommunications data for six to 24 months and allowing police and security agencies to request access from a court to details such as IP address and time of use of every email, phone call, and text message sent or received. *
INDECT INDECT is a research project in the area of intelligent security systems performed by several European universities since 2009 and funded by the European Union. The purpose of the project is to involve European scientists and researchers in the d ...
: Research project funded by the European Union to develop surveillance methods (e.g. processing of CCTV camera data streams) for the monitoring of abnormal behaviours in an urban environment. * Schengen Information System: A database kept for
national security National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military atta ...
and law enforcement purposes.


National


Australia

* In August 2014 it was reported that law-enforcement agencies had been accessing Australians' web browsing histories via internet providers such as Telstra without a warrant. * It was reported that Australia had issued 75% more wiretap warrants in 2003 than the US did and this was 26 times greater than the US on a per capita basis.


China

* Golden Shield Project: Also known as the "Great Firewall of China", it is a censorship and
surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as c ...
project operated by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) division of the government of the People's Republic of China. The project was initiated in 1998 and began operations in November 2003. * The Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP, 一体化联合作战平台) is used by the government to monitor the population, particularly Uyghurs. The platform gathers biometrics, including DNA samples, to track individuals in Xinjiang. * Monitoring Bureau * Public Information Network Security * Social Credit System


France

* Frenchelon: A data collection and analysis network operated by the French Directorate-General for External Security.


Germany

* Nachrichtendienstliches Informationssystem: a searchable database operated by the German security agency Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV). * Project 6: a global surveillance project jointly operated by the German intelligence agencies Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) and Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) in close cooperation with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).


India

*
Central Monitoring System The Central Monitoring System, abbreviated to CMS, is a centralized telephone interception provisioning system installed by the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), an Indian Government owned telecommunications technology development ...
(CMS): A data collection system similar to the NSA's PRISM program. It enables the Government of India to listen to phone conversations, intercept e-mails and text messages, monitor posts on
social networking service A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...
and track searches on Google. *
DRDO NETRA The DRDO Netra is an Indian, light-weight, autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle, UAV for surveillance and reconnaissance operations. It has been jointly developed by the Research and Development Establishment (R&DE), and IdeaForge, a Mumbai-based ...
: Network that is capable of tracking online communications on a real time basis by harvesting data from various voice-over-IP services, including Skype and
Google Talk Google Talk was an Instant messaging, instant messaging service that provided both text and voice communication. The instant messaging service was variously referred to colloquially as Gchat, Gtalk, or Gmessage among its users. Google Talk was ...
. It is operated by the
Research and Analysis Wing The Research and Analysis Wing (abbreviated R&AW; hi, ) is the foreign intelligence agency of India. The agency's primary function is gathering foreign intelligence, counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, advising Indian policymakers, an ...
. *
NATGRID The National Intelligence Grid or NATGRID is the integrated intelligence master database structure for counter-terrorism purpose connecting databases of various core security agencies under Government of India collecting comprehensive patterns pr ...
: An intelligence grid that links the databases of several departments and ministries of the Government of India.


Russia

*
SORM The System for Operative Investigative Activities (SORM; russian: Система оперативно-разыскных мероприятий) is the technical specification for lawful interception interfaces of telecommunications and telephone n ...
: A technical system used by the
Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) RF; rus, Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации (ФСБ России), Federal'naya sluzhba bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Feder ...
to monitor internet and telephone communication. * СAMERTON: Is a global vehicle tracking system, control and tracking, identification of probable routes and places of the most frequent appearance of a particular vehicle, integrated with a distributed network of radar complexes of photo-video fixation and road surveillance camera. Developed and implemented by th
"Advanced Scientific - Research Projects"
enterprise St. Petersburg. Within the framework of the practical use of the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, it has made it possible to identify and solve grave and especially grave crimes, the system is also operated by other state services and departments; *
Yarovaya Law The Yarovaya law (in Russian: Закон Яровой, transliteration: ''Zakon Jarovoy''), also Yarovaya package/bag, is a set of two Russian federal bills, 374-FZ and 375-FZ, passed in 2016. The bills amend previous counter-terrorism laws and ...
is a piece of anti-terrorist legislation that includes a requirement to store all phone call and text messaging data, as well as providing cryptographic backdoors for security services.


Sweden

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Titan traffic database The Titan traffic database is a database allegedly in use by the Swedish signals intelligence agency, the National Defence Radio Establishment The National Defence Radio Establishment ( sv, Försvarets radioanstalt, FRA) is a Swedish governm ...
: A database established by the
Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
(Swedish: Försvarets radioanstalt, FRA) where
call detail record A call detail record (CDR) is a data record produced by a telephone exchange or other telecommunications equipment that documents the details of a telephone call or other telecommunications transactions (e.g., text message) that passes through that ...
s (CDRs) of telephony and internet traffic and
transaction Transaction or transactional may refer to: Commerce * Financial transaction, an agreement, communication, or movement carried out between a buyer and a seller to exchange an asset for payment *Debits and credits in a Double-entry bookkeeping sys ...
data (IPDRs) concerning international telecommunications are stored. *
X-Keyscore XKeyscore (XKEYSCORE or XKS) is a secret computer system used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) for searching and analyzing global Internet data, which it collects in Real-time, real time. The NSA has shared XKeyscore with other ...
: A system used by the United States National Security Agency for searching and analysing internet data about foreign nationals. FRA has been granted access to the program.


Switzerland

* Onyx: A data gathering system maintained by several Swiss intelligence agencies to monitor military and civilian communications, such as
e-mails Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
,
telefax Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer o ...
and telephone calls. In 2001, Onyx received its second nomination for the ironically named "
Big Brother Award The Big Brother Awards (BBAs) recognize "the government and private sector organizations ... which have done the most to threaten personal privacy". They are named after the George Orwell character Big Brother from the novel ''Nineteen Eigh ...
".


United Kingdom

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Impact Nominal Index The Impact Nominal Index or INI was a computer system that enabled UK police forces to establish whether any other force holds information on a person of interest. It was created by the IMPACT Programme led by the Home Office in 2006. INI was shu ...
: The Impact Nominal Index or INI is a computer system that enables the UK police force to establish whether other relevant authorities are holding information regarding a person of interest. *
Interception Modernisation Programme The Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP) was a UK government initiative to extend the government's capabilities for lawful interception and storage of communications data. It was widely reported that the IMP's eventual goal was to store detai ...
: An initiative to extend the UK government's capability to lawfully intercept and store communications data in a central database. *
Mastering the Internet Mastering the Internet (MTI) is a mass surveillance project led by the British communications intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) budgeted at over £1 billion. According to reports in ''The Register'' and ''The Sunday ...
(MTI): A clandestine
mass surveillance Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organizati ...
program led by the British intelligence agency GCHQ. Data gathered by the GCHQ include the contents of email messages, entries on the social networking platform Facebook and the web browsing history of internet users. *
UK National DNA Database The United Kingdom National DNA Database (NDNAD; officially the ''UK National Criminal Intelligence DNA Database'') is a national DNA Database that was set up in 1995. In 2005 it had 3.1 million profiles and in 2020 it had 6.6 million profiles ...
(NDNAD): It is also the oldest national DNA database in the world. Since its establishment in 1995, the database has grown to include DNA samples from 2.7 million individuals, or 5.2% of the UK's population, many of whom have neither been charged with, or convicted of, any offence. * Tempora: Launched in the autumn of 2011, this initiative allows the GCHQ to set up a large-scale buffer that is capable of storing internet content for 3 days and
metadata Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...
for 30 days. * Royal Concierge: prototyped in 2010, sends daily alerts to GCHQ whenever a booking is made from a ".gov." second-level domain at select hotels worldwide. *Collection of
Internet Connection Record , collection of Internet Connection Records is being secretly trialled by two major British ISPs as part of a technical trial for mass surveillance under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. The Home Office and National Crime Agency are also partici ...
s, being trialled in the UK as of March 2021.


United States

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Boundless Informant Boundless Informant (stylized as BOUNDLESSINFORMANT) is a big data analysis and data visualization tool used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA). It gives NSA managers summaries of the NSA's worldwide data collection activities by ...
: A system deployed by the National Security Agency to analyze global electronic information. In March 2013, Boundless Informant gathered 14 billion data reports from Iran, 6.3 billion from India, and 2.8 billion from the United States. *
BULLRUN Bull Run or Bullrun may refer to: Military * First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas), 1861, the first major battle of the American Civil War * Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas), 1862, a later battle also at Bull Run * Operation Bull ...
: a highly classified U.S. National Security Agency program to preserve its ability to eavesdrop on encrypted communications by influencing and weakening encryption standards, by obtaining master encryption keys, and by gaining access to data before or after it is encrypted either by agreement, by force of law, or by computer network exploitation (hacking). * Carnivore: A system implemented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that was designed to monitor email and electronic communications. Apparently replaced by commercial software such as
NarusInsight Narus Inc. was a Software industry, software company and Independent software vendor, vendor of big data analytics for cybersecurity. History In 1997, Ori Cohen, Vice President of Business and Technology Development for VDONet, founded Narus with ...
. *
Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative The Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI) outlines U.S. cybersecurity goals across multiple agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, the Office of Management and Budget, and the National Security Agency. The initiativ ...
*
DCSNet The Digital Collection System Network (DCSNet) is the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s point-and-click surveillance system that can perform instant wiretaps on almost any telecommunications device in the US. It allows access to cellphone, ...
: The
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...
(FBI)'s point-and-click surveillance system that can perform instant wiretaps on any telecommunications device located in the United States.Point, Click ... Eavesdrop: How the FBI Wiretap Net Operates
* Fairview: A
mass surveillance Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organizati ...
program directed at foreign mobile phone users. * Financial Crimes Enforcement Network: A bureau of the Department of the Treasury that collects and analyzes financial transactions in order to combat financial crimes. * ICREACH: Surveillance frontend
GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
that is shared with 23 government agencies, including the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
,
DEA The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA; ) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within the U.S. It is the lead agency for domestic enf ...
, and FBI, to search illegally collected personal records. *
Magic Lantern The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name , is an early type of image projector that used pictures—paintings, prints, or photographs—on transparent plates (usually made of glass), one or more lenses, and a light source. Because a sin ...
: A keystroke logging software deployed by the FBI in the form of an
e-mail attachment An email attachment is a computer file sent along with an email message. One or more files can be attached to any email message, and be sent along with it to the recipient. This is typically used as a simple method to share documents and images. ...
. When activated, it acts as a trojan horse and allows the FBI to decrypt user communications. * Main Core: A personal and financial database storing information of millions of U.S. citizens believed to be threats to
national security National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military atta ...
. The data mostly comes from the
NSA The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collectio ...
, FBI,
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
, as well as other government sources. *
MAINWAY MAINWAY is a database maintained by the United States' National Security Agency (NSA) containing metadata for hundreds of billions of telephone calls made through the largest telephone carriers in the United States, including AT&T, Verizon, and ...
: NSA database containing
metadata Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...
for hundreds of billions of telephone calls made through the four largest telephone carriers in the United States. * Media monitoring services, A proposed DHS database for monitoring all global news sources and media influencers. * MUSCULAR: Overseas wiretapping of Google's and Yahoo's unencrypted internal networks by the NSA. * MYSTIC is a voice interception program used by the National Security Agency. *
Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative The Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Initiative (NSI) is a program of the United States Government used to collect and share reports of suspicious activity by people in the United States. The Nationwide SAR Initiative (NSI) builds o ...
: Under this government initiative, a
Suspicious Activity Report In financial regulation, a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) or Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) is a report made by a financial institution about suspicious or potentially suspicious activity. The criteria to decide when a report must be ma ...
(SAR) may be filed by law enforcers, public safety personnel, owners of critical infrastructure or the general public. *
NSA ANT catalog The ANT catalog (or TAO catalog) is a classified product catalog by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) of which the version written in 2008–2009 was published by German news magazine ''Der Spiegel'' in December 2013. Forty-nine catalog ...
: a 50-page document listing technology available to the United States National Security Agency (NSA) ANT division to aid in cyber-surveillance. * PRISM: A clandestine national security electronic surveillance program operated by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) which can target customers of participating corporations outside or inside the United States. * Room 641A: A telecommunication interception facility operated by AT&T for the U.S. National Security Agency. * Sentry Eagle: efforts to monitor and attack an adversary's cyberspace through capabilities include SIGINT, Computer Network Exploitation (CNE), Information Assurance, Computer Network Defense (CND), Network Warfare, and Computer Network Attack (CNA). The efforts included weakening US commercial encryption systems. * Special Collection Service (SCS): A black budget program that is responsible for "close surveillance, burglary, wiretapping, breaking and entering." It employs covert listening device technologies to bug foreign embassies, communications centers, computer facilities, fiber-optic networks, and government installations. * Stellar Wind (code name): The open secret
code name A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in industrial c ...
for four surveillance programs. * Tailored Access Operations: Intelligence-gathering unit of the NSA that is capable of harvesting approximately 2 petabytes of data per hour. * Terrorist Finance Tracking Program: A joint initiative run by the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
and the Department of the Treasury to access the SWIFT ( Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) transaction database as part of the Bush administration's "Global War on Terrorism". According to the U.S. government, its efforts to counter terrorist activities were compromised after the existence of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program was leaked to the media. * Turbulence (NSA): Turbulence is a United States National Security Agency (NSA) information-technology project started circa 2005. It was developed in small, inexpensive "test" pieces rather than one grand plan like its failed predecessor, the
Trailblazer Project Trailblazer was a United States National Security Agency (NSA) program intended to develop a capability to analyze data carried on communications networks like the Internet. It was intended to track entities using communication methods such as cell ...
. It also includes offensive cyberwarfare capabilities, like injecting malware into remote computers. The U.S. Congress criticized the project in 2007 for having similar bureaucratic problems as the Trailblazer Project. *
US Intelligence Community The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
(IC): A cooperative federation of 16 government agencies working together, but also separately, to gather intelligence and conduct espionage. * Utah Data Center: The Intelligence Community's US$1.5 billion
data storage Data storage is the recording (storing) of information (data) in a storage medium. Handwriting, phonographic recording, magnetic tape, and optical discs are all examples of storage media. Biological molecules such as RNA and DNA are conside ...
center that is designed to store extremely large amounts of data, on the scale of
yottabytes The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...
. *
X-Keyscore XKeyscore (XKEYSCORE or XKS) is a secret computer system used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) for searching and analyzing global Internet data, which it collects in Real-time, real time. The NSA has shared XKeyscore with other ...
: A system used by the United States National Security Agency for searching and analysing internet data about foreign nationals.


Unclear origin

*
GhostNet GhostNet () is the name given by researchers at the Information Warfare Monitor to a large-scale cyber spying operation discovered in March 2009. The operation is likely associated with an advanced persistent threat, or a network actor that spies ...
: A fictitious code name given to a large-scale surveillance project that is believed to be operated by the People's Republic of China. * Stuxnet: It is the first discovered
malware Malware (a portmanteau for ''malicious software'') is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, depri ...
that spies on industrial systems, and it was used to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. It is believed to have originated from the United States under the Bush administration.


Recently discontinued

* '' Information Awareness Office'': An office established to bring together several DARPA projects focused on applying surveillance and information technology to track and monitor terrorists and other threats to U.S. national security. *
Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange The Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange Program, also known by the acronym MATRIX, was a U.S. federally funded data mining system originally developed for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement described as a tool to identify terror ...
(MATRIX): A data mining system originally developed for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. *
Terrorist Surveillance Program The Terrorist Surveillance Program was an electronic surveillance program implemented by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. It was part of the President's Surveillance Program, ...
: Replaced by PRISM. * ThinThread: A U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) program that involved wiretapping and sophisticated analysis of the resulting data. *
Trailblazer Project Trailblazer was a United States National Security Agency (NSA) program intended to develop a capability to analyze data carried on communications networks like the Internet. It was intended to track entities using communication methods such as cell ...
: U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) program intended to develop a capability to analyze data carried on communications networks including cell phone networks and the Internet.


See also

*
2013 Public disclosures of surveillance and espionage activities Thirteen or 13 may refer to: * 13 (number), the natural number following 12 and preceding 14 * One of the years 13 BC, AD 13, 1913, 2013 Music * 13AD (band), an Indian classic and hard rock band Albums * 13 (Black Sabbath album), ''13'' (Black ...
* Electronic police state * List of public disclosures of classified information * NSA warrantless surveillance (2001–07) * Politico-media complex


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Government mass surveillance projects Military lists Surveillance databases National security Signals intelligence Secret government programs Mass surveillance