dataveillance

It is interesting that –veillance seems to be becoming what we call in the trade a productive suffix. This means that the ending of surveillance, a word dating back to the early 1800s in English , has  become detached and can now be fitted to other words to create new compounds.

 So far we have had sousveillance  (the monitoring of an activity by a participant in the activity using hidden cameras and recording devices) and uberveillance (such monitoring using the most sophisticated technology available, in particular microchips implanted in the body).

 The latest in this slowly growing set is dataveillance, the monitoring of digital data relating to someone’s activities online.  

 Since the 1960s we have become accepting of the verb backformation surveil. Can we look forward to sousveil, uberveil and dataveil in due course?