metadata

Metadata is data that provides information about other data. It is used to summarize basic information about data which can make tracking and working with specific data easier.

Historical perspective: In 2019, the National Security Agency began phasing out a surveillance program that analyzed billions of domestic phone calls and texts, according to The Week. The program, first made public in 2013 by intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, was started after the 9/11 attacks and initially required phone carriers to turn over customers’ call records to the NSA. The agency used “metadata” on who called whom and when to map associates of suspected terrorists. It collected 534 million records in 2017, but in 2018 purged records back to 2015 because of “technical irregularities.”