Spies & Spying Personality Profiling: Surveillance Officers

From The Psychology of Spies and Spying by Adrian Furnham and John Taylor.

Surveillance Officers collect intelligence on people who are potentially planning or conducting hostile operations. 

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Spies & Spying: Surveillance Officers

They do so by the clandestine observation of the target individual whether she or he is static (ie, by observing their homes or offices from a flat overlooking the premises or from a car), moving on foot or in a vehicle. 

‍Surveillance Officers collect information on where the individual goes, what they do, and whom they meet. Surveillance teams can often follow the same individual for long periods of time, building up patterns of movement against the day when he or she commits a hostile act.

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Spies & Spying: Surveillance Officers

The size of the team depends on the resources available to the agency, the importance of the target, and the target’s awareness of surveillance potential. Lawful surveillance can be deployed by many government agencies including the tax authorities and social services.

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Gene Hackman stars as a Surveillance Expert in The Conversation (1974)

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Spies & Spying: Surveillance Teams‍

The size of the team can vary from two (unusually small) to 40 or 50, with the use of cars, motorbikes, drones, and aircraft. Some will also deploy beacons clandestinely placed on the car and substances such as chemicals or even nuclear dust to help the surveillants track their target. They have secure radios so they can inform other members of the team what is happening. 

“Once is a happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action.” - Ian Fleming, Goldfinger.

Attributes of an SV Officer include patience and high boredom threshold. They need to look average (the gray person) as they need to blend in. They need to know their ‘patch’ and they have to be technologically competent, sophisticated, and up-to-speed with new developments. There is an arms war in surveillance technology as every development leads to the 'opposition' trying to outsmart it.

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Spies & Spying: Surveillance Officer essentials

The essential skills of a Surveillance Officer are:

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Spies & Spying: Surveillance Officers in fiction

In fiction, perhaps the best known is in John le Carré’s novels. Toby Esterhase heads up the ‘lamplighter’ section responsible for surveillance.

Of all the espionage roles in fiction, particularly in films, surveillance operations are among the least accurate representations.‍

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Excerpt courtesy of The Psychology of Spies and Spying by Adrian Furnham and John Taylor.

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