Surveillance Technology
Conduct Screen Surveillance Capitalism
Companies that manufacture, develop, or sell surveillance technology as a product — including hardware (cameras, sensors, RFID, screening systems), intelligence/forensic software (mobile extraction, facial recognition, predictive analytics), and surveillance infrastructure built for deployment by third parties (governments, corporations). Covers supply-chain enablers (chipmakers, component suppliers) whose products are integral to surveillance systems. Distinct from data_privacy, which covers companies deploying behavioral surveillance against their own users.
39 companies currently excluded under this screen
Excluded Companies (39 total)
Showing 25 of 39 companies excluded under this screen.
| Ticker | Company | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| MAX | MEDIAALPHA INC CLASS A | MediaAlpha operates a lead-generation platform that connects insurance carriers with online shoppers. The company's core business involves collecting and analyzing consumer data to match individuals with insurance products. While MediaAlpha markets its technology as enabling efficient customer acquisition, its platform has been implicated in facilitating surveillance-based marketing practices. The Federal Trade Commission found that MediaAlpha initiated or facilitated unlawful telemarketing calls and failed to obtain proper consent from consumers. In July 2025, the company agreed to pay $45 million as part of a $145 million total settlement with Assurance IQ to resolve these charges. The FTC's action highlights how MediaAlpha's data-driven matching ecosystem can enable intrusive, non-consensual contact. Furthermore, a securities fraud investigation cited evidence suggesting that a significant portion of MediaAlpha's health insurance lead-buying partners were operating questionable schemes, indicating potential systemic issues with how consumer data is leveraged and sold through its platform. Despite achieving SOC 2 Type II compliance for security controls, these regulatory actions demonstrate that MediaAlpha's technology infrastructure supports business practices that surveil and target consumers without adequate transparency or consent, aligning with the surveillance technology exclusion criteria. |
| PUBM | PUBMATIC INC CLASS A | PubMatic operates an artificial intelligence-powered advertising technology platform that enables real-time bidding and user profiling across the digital advertising supply chain. Its core business involves tracking individuals across websites and mobile applications to build detailed behavioral profiles, which are then used to target advertising. This activity constitutes the development and sale of surveillance infrastructure deployed by third-party advertisers and publishers. The company faces ongoing litigation alleging systematic violations of federal and state communications privacy laws. A class-action complaint, which survived a motion to dismiss in early 2026, accuses PubMatic of violating wiretap laws and intruding upon seclusion through its online profiling and data tracking practices. A separate securities class action alleges the company made materially false and misleading statements about its business and prospects, with the stock falling 21% following a related disclosure. While the company provides privacy opt-out tools, its fundamental business model is built on the large-scale collection and analysis of user behavior to facilitate targeted advertising. This positions PubMatic as a provider of surveillance technology—specifically, the intelligence and predictive analytics software used to profile individuals for commercial deployment. |
| DSP | Viant Technology | Viant Technology operates an advertising technology platform that uses artificial intelligence to plan, execute, and measure digital ad campaigns across channels. Its core business is built on tracking individuals across devices and platforms to serve targeted advertising, a form of mass behavioral surveillance deployed for commercial clients. The company’s platform privacy policy details the extensive data it processes, including device identifiers, browsing activity, and inferred characteristics, to build profiles for ad targeting. While Viant’s services are marketed to advertisers, the underlying technology—AI-powered cross-device tracking, real-time bidding on user attention, and pervasive data collection—constitutes surveillance infrastructure sold to third parties. This aligns with the surveillance technology category, which includes software and systems built for deployment by other entities to monitor populations. Viant’s own materials reference leveraging endpoint management software to enforce security policies and remove forensic evidence, indicating capabilities relevant to system control and data obfuscation. The evidence gathered does not specify government contracts or sales of facial recognition systems, but the company’s foundational ad-tech model is inherently a large-scale commercial surveillance operation. |
| 002415 | HikVision | Hikvision is a partly state-owned Chinese manufacturer of video surveillance hardware and AIoT solutions, including network cameras, video recorders, access control systems, and facial recognition technology. Its products are integral to surveillance infrastructure deployed by governments and corporations globally. The company has been placed on the U.S. Department of Commerce Entity List and is prohibited from receiving U.S. federal contracts due to national security risks and its alleged role in human rights violations. The UK Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner has publicly challenged government ministers to clarify procurement positions, citing Hikvision cameras and facial recognition technology as being implicated in systematic human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. The company has, for over eight months, failed to answer formal questions from the UK Commissioner regarding the extent of its involvement. In June 2025, the Government of Canada ordered Hikvision Canada Inc. to cease all operations and wind up due to national security concerns. Hikvision has provided no substantive public commitments, transition plans, or independent human rights due diligence to mitigate these documented risks. |
| MGNI | Magnite Inc | Magnite operates a programmatic advertising platform that collects, analyzes, and monetizes detailed data on individuals' online behavior across desktop, mobile, and connected TV (CTV) environments. This business model is built on the large-scale tracking of web browsing, app usage, and viewing habits to enable targeted advertising. While the company describes its practices under "Responsible Advertising and Data Governance," its core service involves the aggregation and sale of behavioral data. In May 2025, Magnite was sued in a proposed class action alleging it tracked consumers' online behavior without adequate consent and then de-anonymized and sold this data. The lawsuit claims these practices constitute surreptitious data collection. This follows a 2021 report by Spruce Point Management that detailed the company's "dubious business practices." Magnite's technology enables AI-driven contextual signaling and audience targeting, which are forms of predictive analytics used to infer user characteristics and intent—a capability that aligns with the surveillance technology category's inclusion of intelligence and analytics software built for deployment by third parties. |
| TMO | Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc | Thermo Fisher supplied DNA sequencing equipment to Chinese police in Xinjiang used for mass biometric surveillance of the Uyghur Muslim minority. A 2017 Human Rights Watch report revealed the company's equipment was central to building a massive biometric database of the persecuted population. AP's 2025 investigation found the DNA kits were specifically designed for Uyghur population profiling. Further investigations by Citizen Lab and Human Rights Watch documented Chinese authorities conducting involuntary mass DNA collection in Tibet — including blood draws from children as young as five — using Thermo Fisher profiling kits. The company halted Xinjiang sales in 2019 under intense public pressure, and quietly ceased Tibet kit sales in mid-2023. However, AFSC reports that 2021 investigations revealed Thermo Fisher was still doing business with Chinese security agencies after the announced halt. The Henrietta Lacks family sued Thermo Fisher in 2021 for unjust enrichment from mass-producing her living tissue without consent, raising broader questions about the company's approach to biological material ethics. |
| CGNT | Cognyte | Cognyte develops and sells intelligence and investigative analytics software to government agencies and law enforcement. Its core products include surveillance and monitoring platforms designed for mass data collection, analysis, and predictive analytics. The company’s technology is built for deployment by third parties, primarily state security services. The company has faced specific, grave allegations regarding its operations in Myanmar. According to investor documentation, Cognyte is implicated in allegations of potentially aiding and abetting crimes against humanity through the provision of surveillance technology that could facilitate human rights abuses against the Rohingya population. The company has also been cited for a lack of transparency, having not responded to investor guides on these high-risk human rights issues. This pattern of supplying advanced surveillance tools to regimes engaged in severe rights violations, coupled with non-disclosure, demonstrates a material risk of complicity in systemic harm. |
| 2236 | Dahua Technology | Dahua Technology is a global manufacturer of video surveillance hardware and software, including cameras, video management systems, and AI-powered analytics. Its products are deployed by governments and corporations worldwide. In 2023, Voice of America reported Dahua was marketing cameras with "skin color analytics" features, a capability that enables racial profiling. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) documented in 2024 that Dahua cameras purchased by the Georgian government were being installed in Tbilisi amid escalating anti-government protests, sparking fears among demonstrators and human rights groups that the technology would be used to monitor, intimidate, and suppress dissent. The Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) has reported on Dahua’s links to human rights abuses in East Turkistan (Xinjiang), alleging its technology is integral to surveillance systems used for mass internment and population control. The company has not publicly responded to these specific allegations. |
| ZETA | Zeta Global Holdings Corp | Zeta Global Holdings Corp operates an omnichannel data-driven cloud platform that sells customer identity resolution and predictive analytics as core products. Its technology is built to ingest, unify, and analyze consumer data from online and offline sources to enable targeted marketing. This business model involves developing and selling intelligence software that profiles individuals at scale, which constitutes surveillance infrastructure built for deployment by corporate clients. The company’s platform is designed to perform identity resolution, audience segmentation, and predictive scoring for marketing campaigns. These capabilities represent the core components of commercial surveillance systems, which are then deployed by third parties to monitor and influence consumer behavior. While the primary application is marketing, the underlying technology—profiling, tracking, and predicting individual behavior—falls within the definition of surveillance technology as a product. |
| QNST | QUINSTREET INC | QuinStreet operates a performance marketing business that generates leads for clients in sectors including education, financial services, and insurance. This model relies on tracking and analyzing user behavior across digital channels to target and deliver potential customers. The company’s technology infrastructure, which captures and processes detailed user data for client acquisition, functions as a commercial surveillance system. While QuinStreet’s systems are built for marketing, the underlying data harvesting and profiling capabilities are substantively similar to intelligence-gathering platforms. A 2017 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinion revealed that an unnamed internet company, later identified through reporting as likely being QuinStreet, challenged a National Security Letter (NSL) in 2014. This indicates the company possessed user data of a type and scale that attracted government surveillance demands under the USA PATRIOT Act. |
| AXON | Axon Enterprise, Inc. | Axon Enterprise operates Fusus (acquired 2022), a real-time crime center platform that integrates private surveillance cameras, drones, automated license plate readers, and other feeds into a single police-accessible interface. Over 2,400 law enforcement agencies use the platform. The EFF documented how Fusus connects thousands of privately owned cameras to police monitoring without meaningful consent from recorded individuals — camera owners opt in, but subjects of surveillance do not. Civil liberties organizations including the ACLU have warned that real-time crime centers built on Fusus lack regulatory oversight at local, state, or federal levels. In Dearborn, Michigan, community groups raised alarms that the system could be used to target activists and immigrants. Axon markets Fusus explicitly as enabling continuous real-time surveillance of public and private spaces, representing a core commercial surveillance infrastructure product. |
| FLNT | FLUENT INC | Fluent Inc. operates a consumer data brokerage business that has been formally charged by the Federal Trade Commission with operating a deceptive “consent farm.” The FTC’s July 2023 complaint alleges that since 2011, Fluent used deceptive ads and websites promising free rewards from major brands to harvest consumers’ personal data, which it then sold to third parties. As part of a settlement, Fluent was required to direct all customers who purchased its consumer data prior to May 2023 to delete that information. This business model, which collects and monetizes personal data at scale for downstream use, functions as surveillance infrastructure built for deployment by corporate clients. Separately, a company named Fluent Home markets and sells professional smart home security systems featuring intelligent video surveillance and 24/7 video verification, directly offering surveillance hardware and monitoring services to consumers. |
| CLBT | Cellebrite DI Ltd | Cellebrite DI Ltd. develops and sells digital forensic extraction technology, primarily to law enforcement and government agencies. Its core product suite enables the physical extraction and analysis of data from mobile devices, including locked or encrypted phones. This technology has been documented as a tool enabling human rights abuses. In December 2024, Amnesty International reported that Serbian authorities used Cellebrite tools to unlock phones before infecting them with spyware as part of a surveillance campaign targeting activists and journalists. In January 2026, a report by The Citizen Lab, Front Line Defenders, and Access Now detailed how Jordanian authorities used Cellebrite technology to access the phones of detained civil society members following protests, enabling further surveillance. These incidents illustrate a pattern where Cellebrite’s forensic tools facilitate state-level surveillance of civil society. |
| VISN | VISTANCE NETWORKS INC | Vistance Networks (NASDAQ: VISN) is the January 2026 rebrand of CommScope following the sale of its Connectivity & Cable Solutions segment to Amphenol for $10.5 billion. Vistance is the parent of RUCKUS Networks and Aurora Networks (formerly Access Networks Solutions). CommScope held DoD Approved Products List certification for wireless access points and maintained a dedicated federal solutions division marketing network infrastructure to U.S. defense and intelligence agencies. The company's federal solutions portfolio includes secure wireless access, network switching, and connectivity infrastructure marketed for ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) environments. RUCKUS Networks generates approximately $1.05 billion in annual revenue, with federal and defense customers forming a meaningful segment of its enterprise Wi-Fi and campus connectivity business. |
| NIPNF | NEC | NEC Corporation supplies the NeoFace facial recognition platform, which powers ICE's Mobile Fortify app -- confirmed in the DHS 2025 AI Use Case Inventory as the first official acknowledgment. A $23.9 million DHS contract (2020-2023) authorized NEC biometric matching for "unlimited facial quantities, on unlimited hardware platforms, and at unlimited locations." From 2005-2021, DHS awarded NEC eight contracts totaling over $18.4 million for SmartScan face and fingerprint recognition. Customs and Border Protection uses NeoFace for its Biometric Entry/Exit program at ports of entry. NEC's NeoFace enables one-to-many matching against federal databases containing over 270 million biometric records. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights warned in September 2024 that facial recognition deployment raises concerns about accuracy, oversight, and discrimination. |
| YNDX | Yandex NV | Yandex NV, through its Russian subsidiaries, develops and sells facial recognition technology deployed for state surveillance. The company’s technology has been integrated into systems at Russian land borders. Furthermore, Yandex operates the Toloka crowdsourcing platform, which is used to train artificial intelligence models, including those for surveillance applications such as facial recognition. These activities directly enable and supply Russia’s domestic surveillance infrastructure. The company’s core operations remain deeply embedded in the Russian market despite its Dutch corporate structure. While Yandex NV has announced a restructuring to separate its Russian assets, the surveillance technologies developed and sold by its subsidiaries continue to function as integral components of government monitoring systems. |
| AMBA | Ambarella Inc | Ambarella designs system-on-chip (SoC) video processors that form the core silicon in IP surveillance cameras manufactured by Hikvision and Dahua Technology, both placed on the U.S. Commerce Department Entity List in October 2019 for enabling mass surveillance of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang. Analysts estimated Hikvision and Dahua contributed approximately 25-30% of Ambarella's annual revenue (roughly $50 million), with a Morgan Stanley analyst noting a "high-teens" percentage from Hikvision alone. Ambarella's chips power cameras deployed across China's surveillance infrastructure. While the Entity List restricts U.S. technology exports, Ambarella indicated it could continue shipping foreign-produced products to listed entities, maintaining the commercial relationship that enables surveillance hardware production. |
| APP | AppLovin Corporation | AppLovin operates the AXON machine-learning platform, embedded via SDK in thousands of mobile apps. In October 2025, the SEC launched an investigation into allegations that AXON impermissibly harvested proprietary user identifiers from Meta, Snap, TikTok, Reddit, and Google to enable cross-platform tracking — a practice short-seller reports described as "identifier bridging" that stitches data into unified user profiles ("PIGs," or Platform Identifier Groups) in apparent violation of platform terms of service. The FTC opened a parallel investigation into whether AppLovin violated platform privacy policies through this data collection. Multiple research reports (Culper Research, Fuzzy Panda, Muddy Waters) documented the practice. Allegations also include illegal tracking of children's behavioral data. |
| OSIS | OSI Systems Inc | OSI Systems, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Rapiscan Systems, supplies security screening and full-body scanner equipment deployed at Israeli military checkpoints in the occupied West Bank, including Qalandiya, Bethlehem, and Irtah (Sha'ar Efrayim), as well as the entrance to the Western Wall compound in occupied East Jerusalem. Who Profits documents that since 2016, Rapiscan metal detectors have also been installed at 10 District Coordination and Liaison Offices (DCO), a unit of the Israeli Ministry of Defense administering civilian aspects of the military occupation. Equipment is supplied through OSI's exclusive Israeli representative, G1 Secure Solutions (formerly G4S Israel). AFSC Investigate further documents the company's involvement in U.S.-Mexico border surveillance infrastructure. |
| REL | RELX PLC | RELX operates LexisNexis Risk Solutions, which provides data analytics and screening services to government agencies. According to AFSC Investigate, the company holds at least 53 contracts with the U.S. Bureau of Prisons between 2008 and 2021, valued at over $9 million. These contracts are for data services that support the operation of the federal prison system. The company’s Risk Solutions division also markets data and analytics tools to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a key agency in the U.S. immigration enforcement system. By providing data infrastructure to agencies involved in detention and incarceration, RELX materially supports systems that operate within and perpetuate conditions of conflict and systemic violence. |
| WPP | WPP PLC | WPP develops and markets surveillance technology through its RiskProfiler product, which uses voice biometric analysis and facial recognition to identify potential threats to corporate executives. The company promotes this technology as part of its executive protection and risk control services. While WPP is primarily a creative transformation and marketing organization, its development of biometric surveillance tools places it within the supply chain for surveillance infrastructure deployed by corporate clients. |
| NICE | NICE LTD | NICE Ltd. is an Israeli surveillance technology company that sells voice recording, video, and other surveillance tools to U.S. police and prison services. According to the American Friends Service Committee's Investigate database, the company has also provided financing to private prison and immigrant detention operators. Industry analyses routinely categorize NICE among prison and law enforcement stocks, indicating its established market position serving correctional facilities. |
| T | AT&T INC | Operates the Hemisphere program (now Data Analytical Services), the largest known telephone record surveillance database, providing law enforcement access to over a trillion call records including location data. AT&T also facilitated warrantless NSA wiretapping of domestic internet traffic through dedicated infrastructure at its facilities. Records disclosed to federal, state, and local agencies via administrative subpoena without judicial review. |
| PANW | PALO ALTO NETWORKS INC | In 2025-2026, PANW significantly expanded its "Public Sector Cyber Outlook," positioning AI-native security agents as core infrastructure for U.S. CBP and national security stakeholders. 2026 roadmap includes "autonomous SOC agents" that triage alerts and enforce containment without human intervention in border control entities. Unit 42 directly manages national-level law enforcement/border control infrastructure across 37 countries. |
| APPS | Digital Turbine Inc | Digital Turbine's software is pre-installed at the system level on mobile devices. Users cannot uninstall it without rooting their phones, and frequently report waking up to find new games or shopping apps installed on their devices overnight. Security resarchers note that "Installations and removals of apps by users are tracked and linked with PII, which only seem to be “masked” (i.e., hashed) discretionally." |
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