According to Lyon (2007), dataveillance describes watching that is not by sight but rather automated, personal data systems which are compiled to create "seen" profiles. Governments and employers are most interested in this data (p.16).
Clarke (1994) developed this idea, and it focuses on "vertical dimensions of monitoring" (Jansson and Christensen, 2014: 2).
This is surveillance using digital information. According to Kuhn, it is is electronic surveillance of personal data (2), and many like Kuhn take a national security span and add that it is capable of "distinguishing these patterns within millions of dossiers and identifying those subjects matching the predefined patterns of possible terrorists" (2).
According to Ericson and Haggerty (1997), Clark (1998) describes dataveillance as "the systematic use of personal data systems in the investigation or monitoring of the actions or communications of one or more persons" (p. 96).This makes knowledge more about the collective and less about the individual.
References:
Clark, R. (1998). Information technology and dataveillance. communications of teh ACM. 31: 498-512.
Ericson, R. V., & Haggerty, K.D. (1997). The Risk Society. In R.V. Ericson & K.D. Haggerty (Eds.) Policing the risk society (pp. 81-130). U of Toronto: Toronto.Kuhn, Martin. Federal Dataveillance: Implications for Constitutional Privacy Protections. New York: LFB Scholarly Pub., 2007. EBrary. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
Jansson, A.,& Christensen, M. (2014). Media, surveillance and identity: Social perspective. New York: Peter Lang.
Lyon, D. Surveillance Studies: An Overview. (2007). Malden: Polity Press.