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: systems used to authenticate individuals who can access an area (whitelist) or who are banned from it (blacklist).
  • Automated Payments: systems using computer vision to connect to payment services.
  • Border Control: systems used to identify travelers at the border.
  • Commercial Surveillance: systems used to collect information and analyze customer behavior with the purpose of impacting sales.
  • Crime Prevention: systems used to prevent or discourage criminal behavior
  • Criminal Investigations: systems used after a crime has taken place in the context of criminal investigation (for example to identify individuals).
  • Crowd Management: systems to gain insights on crowds and collective behaviour of people.
  • Fraud Prevention: systems aimed at preventing fraud.
  • Fugitive Detection: systems aimed at identifying fugitives from prisons.
  • Health Surveillance: systems aimed at detecting diseases (through thermal monitoring) and/or the application of health measures (covid-19 mask detection for example).
  • Labor Surveillance: systems aimed at detecting absenteeism from work.
  • Missing Person Recovery: systems aimed at identifying missing persons.
  • Political Surveillance: systems aimed at exercising political control over specific individuals.
  • Refugee Identification: systems aimed at identifying refugees.
  • Student Surveillance: systems aimed at detecting absenteeism from school or university.
  • Surveillance: systems generally aimed at identifying and tracking individuals.
  • Targeted Advertising: a specific type of commercial surveillance, aimed at serving targeted advertisement to identified individuals.
  • Traffic Surveillance: systems aimed at detecting traffic issues.
  • Voter & ID Registration: systems aimed at identifying citizens or voters as part of national registries.
  • War Operations: systems aimed at identifying individuals or other forms of control in the context of conflicts.
• Managed by (custodian). The institution in charge of the maintenance of the system.
• Used by Institutions who have access to the system.
• Dataset used The dataset used by the system.
• Software used The specific products used by the system.

What links here

• About the Security Vision Database ‎ (← links)