Methodology

Data Collection

Strategy

Researchers affiliated with the Security Vision project (refer to Credits section for details) have conducted systematic internet queries utilizing pertinent keywords associated with the central theme of the investigation (facial recognition, movement recognition, etc.) across different intervals from 2021 to 2024. The searches were conducted in Arabic, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, English, French, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Spanish. Starting with initial results, researchers progressively expanded the research corpus through snowball sampling. In this sense, this dataset follows the logic of a wiki. Rather than a comprehensive set of comprehensive data points, it collects the information that is available.

Participatory data collection

After the initial launch of the Security Vision Database, the data is collected through participatory contributions, similarly to Wikipedia. To ensure accuracy and reliability of the information, all submissions are reviewed by Security Vision.

Referencing

All the information contained in this wiki can be traced back to its original source. All references are indicated in the pages, and collected in a Zotero library accessible here.

Data Categorization

In this section, we explain some of the most important choices when categorizing information in our database.

Deployments

• Information Certainty. We've organized the information we gathered into three tiers of certainty. "Documented" denotes facts solidly supported by reliable sources. "Rumored" encompasses information reported as potentially true but lacking confirmation. Lastly, "Speculative" pertains to deployments inferred from multiple factual pieces but lacking explicit confirmation.
• Deployment Status. While the categories are self-explanatory, we distinguished "stopped" deployments, which have been interrupted due to the intervention of a court or a watchdog for example, and deployments that have naturally "concluded", either as part of an experimentation, or because they have for example been replaced with other systems.
• Deployment Purpose. We distinguish the following purposes for which security vision systems are implemented:
  • Access Control
  • Automated Payments
  • Border Control
  • Commercial Surveillance
  • Crime Prevention
  • Criminal Investigations
  • Crowd Management
  • Fraud Prevention
  • Fugitive Detection
  • Health Surveillance
  • Labor Surveilance
  • Missing Person Recovery
  • Political Surveillance
  • Refugee Identification
  • Student Surveillance
  • Surveillance
  • Targetted Advertising
  • Traffic Surveillance
  • Voter & ID Registration
  • War Operations

What links here

• About the Security Vision Database ‎ (← links)