Not many people truly understand the presence of security cameras. What started as a practical means of monitoring activity in banks has burgeoned into private and public areas all over the world. In the last ten years, the popularity of the remote surveillance system among police and government institutions has dramatically increased. The rational expectation of crime deference can best explain the growth in CCTV surveillance worldwide. Trust in this reasoning has grown so sturdy that governments have linked public remote video surveillance system equipment to large computer databases which store information about one's physical features and identity. This offers a quick means of identifying potential threats to society.

When government organizations use electronic video observation, they have capabilities that exceed those that smaller institutions, private companies, or individuals. For instance, data profiling has become an important role in protection agencies - particularly areas like law enforcement, security, and intelligence. Data profiling means assembling a cluster of information about an individual. The means of accumulating data may penetrate ones police records, financial transactions, medical records, etc, by following ones electronic trail. Thus, if governments wish to identify you using a remote video surveillance system, they have the ability to dive into a potentially deep pool of information.

Many definitions can describe the term “surveillance” The word itself is French, meaning “watching over” from a literal perspective, one may conclude that the word refers only to activities which involve visually observing a locus. This could include observing the locus directly or via video, using means such as CCTV. Surveillance, however, can describe any type of observation or monitoring. This includes, but is not limited to, such activities as eavesdropping, GPS tracking, and electronic trail following. Still, when one mentions the term, a remote surveillance system using video comes to mind.