noun phrase · academic
mass surveillance
/mæs səˈveɪləns/MASS sur·VEIL·lance
Extensive monitoring of a large population, usually by governments or corporations using technology.
Examples
“Mass surveillance programmes collect data from millions of devices.”
“Debates about security often centre on the trade-off between mass surveillance and privacy.”
“Facial recognition made mass surveillance cheaper and more widespread.”
Band 8 sentence
“Advances in facial recognition technology have made mass surveillance both more efficient and more intrusive.”
Collocations
- conduct mass surveillance
- subject to mass surveillance
- expand mass surveillance
Word family
Common mistakes
do mass surveillance→conduct mass surveillance
surveillance peoples→surveillance of people / surveillance on people
Say it for a higher band
5surveillance→6widespread monitoring→7+mass surveillance
Synonyms
widespread monitoring
Easily confused
widespread monitoring
“Widespread monitoring of public spaces raised serious privacy concerns.”
Related words
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In Society & Government
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