Monitoring and Surveillance
Monitoring is a general term that refers to the systematic, continual, and active or passive observation of persons, places, things, or processes. By contrast surveillance is used to indicate targeted monitoring of activities by police or security officials for specific evidence of crimes or other wrongdoing. Surveillance focuses on individuals, buildings and properties, or vehicles deemed suspicious on the basis of credible information that they are connected in some way to illegal or otherwise inappropriate activity. Surveillance operations carried out by investigators may: (1) be stationary or mobile in nature and require various types of monitoring technologies to enhance the visual or hearing capabilities of officers or operatives doing the surveillance; (2) involve recording of events, locations, days or times, and patterns of behaviors or activities; and (3) include monitoring of telephone or in-person conversations, as well as electronic correspondence such as E-mail or instant messaging notes exchanged between individuals or groups of people. Surveillance is usually carried out in covert ways and with legal authority.
Monitoring typically involves routine recording of activities to warn of trouble or for accounting purposes. Open public spaces such as airports, shopping malls, and other places where large numbers of people gather are monitored to help assure public safety and security.
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