What is Surveillance?
Welcome to the first part of a 5-part series on Surveillance.
Today I will be discussing a well-known, but misunderstood concept and tactic in the Intelligence world, surveillance.
During my career as an intelligence officer, I had the opportunity to conduct surveillance against targets of national security and was the target of surveillance by foreign intelligence and law enforcement organizations, as well as terrorist groups and individuals.
Surveillance can be broken up into two main categories, Physical and Technical. Technical can be broken up into several subcategories, including electronic surveillance, geofencing, metadata collection, and many others. For the purpose of this series, I will be focusing on Physical surveillance. This is not to say that the use of technical surveillance is not as effective or more effective, or can be used in coordination with Physical surveillance. However, Physical surveillance has had a much longer history than the others, and for the novice as well as the expert practitioner, it can be more easily implemented.
So back to the original question, what is surveillance? In simplistic terms, surveillance is the act of collecting information on a target through observation. This can include any sense that you have, that’s right, physical surveillance has a smell component as well. Remember that the next time you go for a run and jump onto the elevator, thinking that the surveillance didn’t see you enter the lobby, so how can they know which elevator you took? Well, stinky, it may be easier than you thought.
Surveillance is a technique that has been ingrained in human behaviour from our species’ beginning. Think of how hunting and gathering became the way of survival for our species.
For humans to survive we have had to conduct surveillance, or active observation techniques from the very beginning, whether tracking prey or finding new areas that provide nutrients through fruit and vegetables.
The terms hunting and gathering will come up in later episodes in relation to how to conduct counter surveillance, but for the purpose of this document/episode, surveillance is akin to hunting. However, instead of tracking down prey for consumption, the goal is the identification of information through continued and sustained observation.
What type of information would an intelligence organization be interested in when conducting surveillance against a target? Well, I’m glad you asked.
The types of information that an intelligence organization would be interested in range from anything to the target’s contacts, routines, allies, address, place of work, mode of transport, place of worship, vehicle identification, purchases, and travel plans. The list is infinite and only dependent on the requirements of the intelligence organization’s concerns.
Good surveillance can lead to breakthroughs in intelligence investigations, including potential contacts for further investigation or interview. This could lead to the recruitment of a new source to provide further insight into the target’s activities or plans. Or a physical location that can be used to install a technical surveillance device. See how I mentioned they can complement each other.
Surveillance can provide insight into the future plans of a target; it can also allow for an opportunity to identify areas that a target may be if information comes in that there is reason to have an immediate concern over the activities of the target. Surveillance teams will often look to previously identified information to try to regain control of a target’s location.
For instance, a previous surveillance operation against a target may have identified that often use a little-known coffee shop in an underground mall because the Wi-Fi band is good, and the coffee shop is away from prying eyes. Or the target just loves the mocha chino espresso with double whip. Yes, even knowing the target’s favourite type of caffeine drink, can have its advantages.
If information comes in from a source that the target has gone missing for some time, and their laptop is also missing, the surveillance team can use this previously identified area as a potential place to look.
Essentially, with surveillance, any information can be useful information. Therefore, Intelligence Officers often rely on Surveillance teams to provide insight into their targets, which may not be readily available to them by reading a file or interviewing contacts, sources or casual acquaintances. Additionally, as an Intelligence Officer who may become a target of surveillance during their own clandestine activities, knowing what a surveillance team may find most interesting, can provide an advantage to identifying if you are being observed.
In the next part of this series on surveillance, I will be discussing How Surveillance is conducted.
