Journalist Ronan Farrow turns his reporting instincts toward the surveillance industry itself in this 2024 documentary about how governments watch their own citizens.
What is Surveilled about?
Rather than treat digital surveillance as an abstract policy debate, this documentary follows Farrow as he traces the tools and companies that let states monitor phones, messages, and movements far beyond what most people assume is possible. The film moves between interviews, on-the-ground reporting, and case material to show how commercial spyware has moved from a niche intelligence tool into something governments deploy against journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens alike. Directors Perri Peltz and Matthew O'Neill structure the film as an investigation rather than a lecture, letting the trail of evidence do the work of building its case.
About the cast
Ronan Farrow, the journalist and author known for his investigative reporting, serves as the film's on-camera guide, bringing the same dogged reporting style that has defined his print work to a visual medium. His presence gives the film a recognizable throughline as it moves between different countries, sources, and technical explanations, anchoring dense material in a single, familiar narrator.
Context & significance
Surveilled belongs to a growing wave of documentaries examining digital privacy and state surveillance in the smartphone era, a subject that has drawn increasing attention from journalists and watchdog groups worldwide. Produced in the United States, the film runs a tight 60 minutes, closer to long-form journalism than a traditional feature documentary. That format choice matters: rather than stretching the material to fill a feature-length runtime, the filmmakers keep the focus narrow and the pace brisk, treating the subject with the urgency of a news broadcast rather than the slower rhythms of a conventional issue documentary.
Watching Surveilled on Ktime
Surveilled is available to stream on K-Time with a free account login; the page itself can be browsed without signing in first. K-Time's Farsi-language interface and subtitle support make current-affairs documentaries like this one accessible to Persian-speaking audiences worldwide.