Timeline of classified mass-surveillance operations (Tempora, PRISM, ECHELON, and related)

ECHELON — early global SIGINT (Five Eyes)

• Operational origins: ~1971–1972 — ECHELON developed from UKUSA cooperation during Cold War (satellite & long-range interception networks). Encyclopedia Britannica+1
• Public/parliamentary attention: 1998–2001 — European Parliament investigation and reports; Duncan Campbell and others had earlier reported elements (1988 New Statesman). ECHELON became publicly debated in late 1990s / 2000. Wikipedia+1
• Summary: Early international mass interception network (phone, fax, satellite data) formed the groundwork for later fibre-based collection.

STELLARWIND / post-9/11 US programmes

• Operational origin: 2001+ (U.S., post-9/11 executive programmes) — set precedent for expanded domestic/foreign data collection and special authorisations. (Mentioned because it shaped later NSA practices that tied into PRISM/Upstream). Wikipedia

Tempora (GCHQ, UK) — fibre-optic mass interception

• Tested: ~2008 (trials reported around GCHQ Bude and other sites).
• Operational / declared: Late 2011 — widely reported as launched/operational.
• Public disclosure: 2013 — Edward Snowden leaks; major media reporting (Guardian, The Atlantic, Der Spiegel). Snowden revealed Tempora’s capability to buffer huge volumes of internet traffic tapped from fibre cables; estimates quoted included “21 petabytes/day” processing potential in press summaries. Courts and NGOs later criticised legal safeguards. Wikipedia+1

PRISM (NSA, US) , company-access collection under FISA §702

• Operational start (publicly stated): 2007 (documents indicate PRISM operations from 2007).
• Public disclosure: 6 June 2013 — Guardian/Washington Post reporting based on Snowden files; official DNI fact sheets followed in early June 2013. PRISM facilitates collection under FISA §702 from US service providers (Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.) — the controversy focused on scope and whether the government had “direct access” to servers. Wikipedia+1

Upstream collection & XKeyscore (NSA / allied tools used with Tempora)

• Upstream / XKeyscore: Exposed in Snowden leaks (2013). Upstream refers to tapping internet backbone links (analogous to Tempora). XKeyscore is an analytic/search tool able to query intercepted content. These systems were revealed in 2013 as part of the same Snowden corpus. Wikipedia+1

Other notable programmes and capabilities

• MILLIONS / MVR / POKERFACE (components referenced in Snowden documents describing Tempora sanitisation and storage pipelines) — revealed in 2013 with Snowden documents. Wikipedia
• Mass domestic biometric surveillance (Live Facial Recognition) — UK police expansion
  • Trials begin: Met trialled some versions since 2016 (public reporting).
  • FOI / deployment expansion & reporting: 2023–2025 — FOI disclosures and press reporting show rapidly expanding use; 2024 figure of ~4.7m face scans reported in press and backed by FOI evidence and police deployment logs. By 2024–2025 multiple forces had operational LFR deployments and orders for systems. Financial Times+2The Guardian+2

What the timeline shows

• Continuity and evolution: ECHELON (satellite era) → Post-9/11 expansions (Stellarwind etc.) → fibre-optic mass capture (Tempora, Upstream) + analytic tools (XKeyscore) → provider-assisted collection under legal frameworks (PRISM/FISA §702) → now expanding public-space biometric capture (LFR) by domestic police forces. The technical architecture matured from intercepting communications to automated, cross-modal identification (communications + biometrics). Encyclopedia Britannica+2Wikipedia+2
• Legal / oversight pattern: Major leaks (Snowden 2013) exposed bulk collection; subsequent judicial and parliamentary scrutiny (e.g., ECHR/European Court scrutiny, Amnesty commentary) found UK safeguards lacking or insufficient in places. FOI disclosures of police LFR deployments show local operational detail, but national sharing/architecture remains less transparent. Amnesty International+1

Faces scanned (UK, 2024): ~4.7 million people scanned by police live facial-recognition (LFR) systems in 2024. The Guardian+1 Average per day (2024): ≈ 4,700,000 ÷ 365 = 12,876.7 → ~12,877 faces/day scanned on average during 2024. (rounded) The Guardian Peak single-day scans reported (2025): up to ~50,000 faces in one day around London Underground stations (reported September 2025). The Telegraph+1

Tempora (GCHQ, revealed 2013): capacity cited ≈ 21 petabytes/day (estimates based on ~46 tapped 10Gb/s cables; storage/retention rules reported in Snowden documents). This is orders of magnitude larger as a data volume than the biometric totals above, but of a different type (raw communications vs face images/metadata). The Guardian+1

ECHELON (histor): a Five-Eyes SIGINT interception network (satellite/long-range interception historically) — the historic ECHELON program set the pattern for large-scale, indiscriminate SIGINT collection; by later decades, fibre taps and Tempora replaced much satellite-based interception as the primary vector. Wikipedia+1

Scale is already “mass” in a practical sense. 4.7M face scans in a year (~12.9k/day) is not a handful of special operations — it’s routine, repeated scanning of ordinary passers-by. Peak days (≈50k) show the system can scale dramatically for specific events or locations. The Guardian+1 Two different kinds of mass surveillance are present and growing: Communications interception (Tempora / Five Eyes): bulk capture of enormous data flows (petabytes/day) from fibre-optic cables; metadata/content buffering and downstream analysis. This provides a broad ability to access the internet and telephony communications. The Guardian+1 Biometric / public-space surveillance (LFR): continuous scanning of faces in public places and matching against watchlists/databases. Numbers show rapid expansion by police and private actors. Financial Times+1 Different risks, similar civil-liberties threats. Tempora/ECHELON-style collection risks mass, suspicionless collection of communications content and metadata. LFR risks continuous biometric tracking and misidentification of ordinary people. Combined, they create cross-modal surveillance (you can be tracked by your communications and in public life). Privacy International+1 Legal/oversight gaps make scale more worrying. Investigations and courts have repeatedly criticised secrecy and inadequate safeguards. Independent oversight, clear rules for LFR, and transparency remain contested.