Listen to this article:

The crisis triggered by the US-Israel war on Iran has revealed a chilling truth: the very tools of mass public surveillance, that is, CCTV networks, biometric systems and open-source intelligence data collection can now be weaponised against powerful figures within government itself.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei was assassinated in a swift operation aided by artificial intelligence. Nearly all traffic cameras in Tehran were hacked and footage was transmitted to servers in Israel. This footage was used to track the movements of key government figures, those close to Ayatollah Khamenei and even their bodyguards. Data from the public domain, including addresses, work habits and family life, was analysed by Israel, and this information was then used to pinpoint the attack.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was captured using similar surveillance techniques aided by Anthropic’s AI model.

These incidents have triggered a debate disturbing reality unfolding in global power corridors. The digital security architecture that intrusively collected data from the public without consent has transformed into a security nightmare. Governments that dismissed public concerns about mass surveillance for decades are now confronting an uncomfortable truth: data control is not a one-way street.

The ditch powerful governments dug for ordinary citizens can become a grave for themselves.

The surveillance state 

The seeds of mass surveillance were sown in Britain in the early 1990s when CCTV cameras began proliferating in cities. While civil society raised concerns, successive governments dismissed them as paranoia by alarmists. They argued that security demanded visibility and that eliminating anonymity would reduce crime, deter terrorism and ensure public safety.

Later, almost the entire world followed the same path. In India, too, a similar approach was adopted. The Aadhaar biometric database linked biometric data to almost every service provided by the government, and private entities like mobile........

© The Wire