In this article, I am not addressing populism and freedom of expression per se, i.e. as two issues that I closely focus upon. Rather the perspectives are intertwined in the overall discussions and examples. Surveillance technologies can be used to stimulate populism and limit freedom of expression, as well as they can contribute to the opposite.The outcome does not only depend on the technology and its capacities, but on the persons, citizens, states, religious groups, and companies who use it. After centuries of technological innovations alongside industrialisation, the concept of surveillance has been associated with a Big Brother society, i.e. asymmetrical surveillance by the state or employer to surveil citizens or employees with different tools, visible or invisible. The aims of surveillance are a multitude: protection, security,efficiency, steering of behaviour and opinions, prevention of unwanted actions, et cetera. After the 9/11 terror attack in New York and Washington in 2001, the idea and implementation of surveillance technology has increased unimaginably, in parallel with a political view of the ‘war against terror’, and in parallel with possibilities for advanced technology that has become an essential part of how we, as humans, understand our life as individuals and as communities. One consequence of the paradigm is a certain gaze upon religious communities, where some become more visible than others.