One of the most unsettling aspects of modern life is the sense that you’re constantly being monitored. Smartphones, computers, CCTV cameras: all watching, collecting our data, listening in.
In 2013, whistleblowing NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the extent to which intelligence agencies in the U.S. and UK were monitoring their populations through mass surveillance and the bulk interception of internet traffic. At the same time, the Big Tech model of extracting personal data to predict and influence human behavior was becoming entrenched as the basis of the digital economy. Despite Snowden’s revelations, rapidly evolving technologies such as AI are only expanding the watchers’ reach.
Today, even in so-called liberal democracies, the very concept of privacy is under threat from a surveillance infrastructure that feels increasingly totalitarian—not with the stamping boot of George Orwell’s 1984, but by maintaining a quiet background presence in the mundane activities of our tech-dependent lives. Sold to us as being essential for our “convenience” and “safety,” the real scope and purpose of this regime remains obscured in the murky crossover between the Deep State and private corporations, with low levels of public awareness and little meaningful oversight from regulators and politicians.
To try to understand more, VICE spoke to Jason Bassler, co-founder of The Free Thought Project, an activist platform that has been scrutinizing these issues for over a decade.
VICE: First off, I wanted to address what is likely foremost in people’s minds when it comes to surveillance. In what ways are our smartphones producing information about us that governments and corporations use without our knowledge?
Jason Bassler, The Free Thought Project: Our phones have long been the Achilles’ heel for privacy advocates. The general public has little-to-no understanding of the full extent of the mobile tracking device in their pocket. While cookies and browser history once drove targeted ads based on your online behavior, today’s mobile tech goes far beyond anything we saw even five years ago. Our phones constantly ping GPS satellites, WiFi networks, and cell towers to triangulate our location, whether or not you’re using a map app. Apps quietly harvest this data and sell it to data brokers, who in turn sell it to agencies like ICE, the FBI, and even the U.S. military.
Then there are the face scans, fingerprints, and iris recognition that most consumers willingly give up for a sense of convenience. This biometric data isn’t always just stored locally. Some systems sync with cloud servers, making it accessible to third parties and even hackers. This biometric data can—and has—been used against Americans for surveillance, profiling, and predictive policing. Even if you use a VPN or encrypted messaging apps, telecom providers still retain metadata: who you contact, when, and how often. That metadata alone can paint a detailed picture of your social network and behavior.
What do we know about the government programs like Upstream, PRISM, and Tempora that Edward Snowden exposed in 2013? And how has state surveillance of civilians developed since then?
Despite the initial uproar over mass surveillance, both Upstream and PRISM programs are still active and were renewed in mid-April of 2024. A new reauthorization will happen in April 2026, so hopefully the American public will be a little more privy to it and push back against the normalization of surveillance and bulk data collection. Tempora, which is the UK equivalent of Upstream, remains opaque, with little information publicly available. The UK government neither confirms nor denies its existence, but considering how important mass surveillance is to the security state, it’s reasonable to conclude that it is still operational.
Since 2013, the surveillance state has grown exponentially, particularly in its ability to circumvent constitutional safeguards and privacy laws. What began as isolated data collection has morphed into a sprawling public-private ecosystem, where surveillance is not just normalized but wildly profitable. Big Tech now leads the charge, fueling AI-driven biometric tracking in nearly every sector.
How is biometric surveillance technology being deployed more broadly? The Trump administration seems to be extending these powers.
Yes, aggressively. The Department of Homeland Security recently revived a 2020 rule that would increase biometric data collection by over 60 percent. In July of this year, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem made a major announcement that the Transport Security Administration would be including facial recognition at checkpoints and automated screening lanes, under the banner of “efficiency.” Around the same time, it was revealed that the TSA is expanding biometric surveillance across nearly all U.S. airports as part of a $5.5 billion modernization push. Airports nationwide will be utilizing facial recognition software, and over 250 airports will be accepting digital ID verification.
It’s a similar situation with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Biometric data collected at borders is often retained indefinitely, and it’s increasingly shared with law enforcement and intelligence agencies, raising concerns about lack of oversight. Border control isn’t just about fences anymore. It’s about fingerprints, facial scans, and AI predictions. Crossing a line usually means entering a database. Also, biometric technology has become commonplace at protests, marches, and political events. Not only are facial recognition cameras used—mounted on buildings, drones, or even body-worn devices—they are actively matching faces with databases of known activists, arrestees, and social media profiles.
“What began as isolated data collection has morphed into a sprawling public-private ecosystem, where surveillance is not just normalized but wildly profitable”
What are Flock cameras and how are they being used?
Flock cameras are ALPRs—or automated license plate readers—developed by Flock Safety. They’re designed to capture, analyze, and store vehicle data in real time. Think of them as a cop on the corner of your street, taking notes about every car that passes—its color, its make, its year, where it’s going, how often it goes there, how long it stays, and much more. Now, imagine an army of cops on every corner of your city doing that. This is what Flock cameras are, except they are mounted on poles and traffic lights, in the parking lots of hospitals and malls and even in patrol cars.
While Flock claims its system helps reduce crime, critics warn that it expands mass surveillance, raises privacy concerns, and risks misuse, especially when data is shared with federal agencies or used without clear oversight. Law enforcement can tap into this database and share the information with other government agencies like ICE, a practice that’s already been documented multiple times. Meanwhile, Flock recently announced that their cameras won’t just be ALPR anymore but will also be accessible in real-time surveillance for law enforcement. Scary, right?
And it’s not just our streets littered with Flock cameras, either. On April 1, 2025, Flock entered into a multi-year contract that allows K-12 schools, universities, and local governments to install their surveillance systems.
Palantir is a name we hear a lot, for its involvement with government bodies, in the U.S. and around the world. Can you give us a sense of what it does and how those actions are affecting daily life for regular people?
Palantir is named after the all-seeing orb in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books and was founded in 2003 with backing from Peter Thiel. Thiel co-founded PayPal and other tech ventures over the years, but none as influential or controversial as Palantir, which today is one of the most powerful players in global surveillance and data analytics. Some argue it’s not technically a surveillance company, but rather a ‘data fusion’ firm—which might be true—but it still enables and increases surveillance on a massive scale. If Flock cameras are the eyes of the surveillance state, Palantir is the brain.
Palantir has several known operating systems. Foundry and Gotham are the two most popular. While Foundry is used more broadly for data analytics in public health, logistics, and commercial sectors, its Gotham platform is the backbone of modern government surveillance and intelligence analysis. It’s designed to help agencies make sense of massive datasets, turning raw information into insight. In 2024, over 55 percent of Palantir’s revenue came from government contracts.
How does Palantir’s work in warzones come to affect civilian life?
Palantir is deeply embedded in both the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts. Ukraine has been described by leading academics and journalists as Palantir’s “AI war laboratory,” serving as a real-world testing ground for integrating machine learning into live war zones. Human rights groups warn that Palantir’s AI targeting systems accelerate kill-chain decisions, strip away human oversight, and dehumanize warfare into data-driven execution. Palantir insists it doesn’t build autonomous kill systems, only analytic platforms, and is simply defending “democracy” by arming Western allies with “superior” AI decision-making tools. Others suggest it’s a for-profit intelligence contractor, blurring the line between government surveillance, military targeting, and corporate tech.
Why do Israeli tech firms and former military personnel play such a prominent role in the global surveillance ecosystem?
There’s no single “correct” answer, but Gaza, in particular, has become a real-time sandbox for innovation because it’s one of the few places on Earth with sustained, high-intensity conflict. That environment creates constant demand for surveillance and security tools, which Israeli firms are uniquely positioned to supply.
Many of the most successful companies producing Israeli surveillance tech were founded by veterans of Unit 8200, Israel’s elite cyber intelligence division, giving them expertise in data extraction, behavioral profiling, and digital targeting. Add to that the revolving door between government and private industry—not just in the U.S., but globally—and you get a system built to accelerate corporatist collusion and push out faster, more invasive spy tech with minimal oversight.
“If Flock cameras are the eyes of the surveillance state, Palantir is the brain”
How do public-private partnerships between tech companies and state agencies facilitate surveillance, and to what extent do they allow governments to bypass domestic privacy laws?
They allow law enforcement to outsource data collection and analysis to private firms that don’t have the same restrictions—or aren’t subject to the same transparency or oversight—as public agencies. For example, law enforcement can access real-time footage from privately owned camera networks like Flock or Ring without needing a warrant, in the case of Flock due to data-sharing agreements (where private users have opted-in), and in the case of Ring where the company deems the situation an emergency. Agencies like DHS and the FBI also contract companies like Palantir to build systems that link biometric, financial, and social media data across jurisdictions. In fact, in 2013, Palantir quietly entered into a predictive policing partnership with the New Orleans Police Department without seeking approval from the New Orleans City Council. The partnership remained secret for years. In 2018, an investigation found that Palantir’s software was being used to generate “risk scores” and monitor people using data scraped from criminal databases and social media.
Another story came out in June of this year that ICE was using a real-time biometric surveillance app called Mobile Fortify, allowing agents to identify individuals by simply pointing a smartphone camera at their face or fingers. Critics warn about concerns of racial profiling and turning people’s faces into QR codes. These systems and apps often operate in legal gray areas; they centralize data while private firms collect and process it, and governments tap into it freely without any legal scrutiny.
To sum up, what do you see as the biggest technological threats to privacy and personal freedom today?
I wouldn’t pin the threat on any single piece of technology. It’s the entire ecosystem. Facial recognition, predictive algorithms, biometric databases, AI-driven surveillance—all of that is equally horrifying to anyone who still regards privacy as a virtue.
What concerns me most is the human tendency to outsource accountability, transparency, and decision-making to these systems. We’re not just automating processes; we’re automating judgment, often in the very moments when human discernment is most critical. By deferring to machines, we create a moral blind spot. The algorithm becomes the scapegoat, the system becomes the excuse—and suddenly, no one is responsible. Not the agency, not the officer behind the screen. For decades, government has mastered the art of passing the buck and sidestepping blame. But now, with automated systems and outsourced surveillance, the buck doesn’t just get passed, it vanishes altogether. This isn’t just a technical shift, it’s a cultural one—a quiet surrender of ethical responsibility, masked in the language of efficiency and innovation.
And what advice would you give people seeking to protect themselves from this surveillance in their day-to-day lives?
There are a few different approaches. There are steps you can take personally. Obscure your biometrics, especially if you’re at a protest or political event. Opt for strong passwords and turn off biometric unlocking features on your phone and devices. Disable GPS or Bluetooth when not in use, and avoid apps that demand location access. Use privacy-first tools and tech. Encrypted messaging apps like Signal help; VPNs and privacy browsers like Brave all help move in a better direction. Minimize your data trail—don’t overshare on social media, avoid posting real-time location or personal identifiers. Also, always opt out when possible. Decline facial scans at airports, stores, and events.
We all need to push back politically and use our voices. Many of our friends and family will have never even heard of Flock cameras and have no idea what Palantir is. Support anti-surveillance legislation and demand transparency from your city council or school board about surveillance contracts. Be in the know: websites like Deflock.me map the locations of Flock’s ALPRs across the U.S.
Once people start to see the system for what it is—a panopticon of control, not protection or safety—they can start resisting it strategically. Surveillance thrives on passivity. Awareness is resistance.
Follow Joe Banks on X @joepbanks
The post We Asked an Expert: How Are Regular People Being Spied On? appeared first on VICE.
