A review of modern surveillance techniques and their presence in our society

Abstract: Technology is now omnipresent around us. Especially with the recent health crisis, many people started working remotely, bringing home an additional computer. Combining this with our smartphones that we could never leave behind, we are always surrounded by these technological marvels. However, they come along with a rather dark side from which many people choose to look away, preferring to live in denial: the surveillance. All of these devices can be used to keep a close eye and ear on us. The modern surveillance machine has reached a new, groundbreaking, size; and we will attempt to understand how we ended up in this situation. To have a complete understanding of the problem, it is important to gather some historical background to comprehend where this issue comes from as well as a review of the different actors. Each actor has a specific skillset it will use to acquire the desired information, and what information they choose to gather depends strongly on their motives. We will go over the many tricks used to gather our information, as well as its relevance in the current surveillance climate.