Infographic - The Relative Cost of Surveillance

Ashkan Soltani, a privacy and security researcher who has been working with the Washington Post on the Snowden files, has published a graphic that illustrates how technology has greatly reduced the barriers to performing surveillance. Soltani included the graph in a paper published in the Yale Law Journal...

Click to enlarge.

The cost comparison involves the several location surveillance techniques of physical pursuit by foot and in vehicles, location tracking using a radio beeper, a GPS device, or a cell phone.

A few examples for understanding the chart:
• Tracking a suspect using a GPS device is 28 times cheaper than assigning officers to follow him.
• Tracking a suspect using cell phone data is 53 times cheaper than physical covert pursuit.
• Tracking a cell phone is twice as cheap as using a GPS device. (more)