Counter surveillance is the practice of avoiding surveillance or making surveillance difficult. Before computer networks, counter surveillance involved avoiding agents and communicating secretly. With recent developments; the Internet, increasing prevalence of electronic security systems, and computer databases, counter surveillance has grown in scope and complexity. Now counter surveillance involves everything from knowing how to delete a file on a computer to avoiding becoming the target of direct advertising agencies.

Inverse surveillance is the practice of reversalism on surveillance, e.g., citizens photographing police, shoppers photographing shopkeepers, and passengers photographing cab drivers who usually have surveillance cameras in their cabs. A well-known example is George Haliday's recording of the Rodney King beating. Inverse surveillance attempts to subvert the Panoptic gaze of surveillance, and often attempts to subvert the secrecy of surveillance through making the inverse surveillance recordings widely available (in contrast to the usually secret or restricted surveillance tapes).

Sousveillance (a term coined by Steve Mann, a professor at the University of Toronto [2]) is inverse surveillance that includes the recording of an activity by a participant in the activity. Recent sousveillance workshops such as Microsoft's Continuous Archival and Recording of Personal Experience are evidence of a growing sousveillance industry including Microsoft (wearable cameras), Nokia, Hewlett Packard ("Casual Capture") and many others.

Clinical Surveillance is the monitoring of events (including, for example, the occurrences of infectious diseases or chronic diseases) with a significant impact on public health. Increasingly, clinical surveillance is being used to inform public policy in allocating health care resources and meeting patient needs. As health care becomes increasingly dependent on information systems and the use of clinical surveillance becomes more widespread, privacy concerns may arise.