"security theater" meaning in English

See security theater in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Etymology: Attributed to Bruce Schneier. Head templates: {{en-noun|-}} security theater (uncountable)
  1. Security measures which are intended to, or do, provide a feeling or illusion of improved security, while doing little or nothing to actually improve security. Wikipedia link: Bruce Schneier, security theater Tags: uncountable Categories (topical): Security Synonyms: security theatre Translations (measures which provide a sense of security without providing security): sikkerhedsteater [neuter] (Danish), comédie sécuritaire [feminine] (French), Sicherheitstheater [neuter] (German)

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for security theater meaning in English (2.9kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Attributed to Bruce Schneier.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "security theater (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Security",
          "orig": "en:Security",
          "parents": [
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Coordinate term: hygiene theater"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003 July 28, Bruce Schneier, Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World, Springer, page 38",
          "text": "But some countermeasures provide the feeling of security instead of the reality. These are nothing more than security theater.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 August 22, Jeff Jarvis, “As a Democrat, I am disgusted with President Obama”, in The Guardian",
          "text": "I do care about security. I survived the attack on the World Trade Center and I believe 9/11 was allowed to occur through a failure of intelligence. I thank TSA agents for searching me: applause for security theater.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2021 July 12, Sirin Kale, “Hygiene theatre: how excessive cleaning gives us a false sense of security”, in The Guardian",
          "text": "[Bruce] Schneier agrees that Covid-19 has ushered in an era of hygiene theatre. “Like security theatre,” he says, “hygiene theatre comes from bad risk analysis – really, from ignorance.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Security measures which are intended to, or do, provide a feeling or illusion of improved security, while doing little or nothing to actually improve security."
      ],
      "id": "en-security_theater-en-noun-qHS3xW6E",
      "links": [
        [
          "Security",
          "security"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "security theatre"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "da",
          "lang": "Danish",
          "sense": "measures which provide a sense of security without providing security",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "sikkerhedsteater"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "measures which provide a sense of security without providing security",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "comédie sécuritaire"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "measures which provide a sense of security without providing security",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "Sicherheitstheater"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Bruce Schneier",
        "security theater"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "security theater"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Attributed to Bruce Schneier.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "security theater (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English uncountable nouns",
        "en:Security"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Coordinate term: hygiene theater"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003 July 28, Bruce Schneier, Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World, Springer, page 38",
          "text": "But some countermeasures provide the feeling of security instead of the reality. These are nothing more than security theater.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 August 22, Jeff Jarvis, “As a Democrat, I am disgusted with President Obama”, in The Guardian",
          "text": "I do care about security. I survived the attack on the World Trade Center and I believe 9/11 was allowed to occur through a failure of intelligence. I thank TSA agents for searching me: applause for security theater.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2021 July 12, Sirin Kale, “Hygiene theatre: how excessive cleaning gives us a false sense of security”, in The Guardian",
          "text": "[Bruce] Schneier agrees that Covid-19 has ushered in an era of hygiene theatre. “Like security theatre,” he says, “hygiene theatre comes from bad risk analysis – really, from ignorance.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Security measures which are intended to, or do, provide a feeling or illusion of improved security, while doing little or nothing to actually improve security."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Security",
          "security"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Bruce Schneier",
        "security theater"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "security theatre"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "da",
      "lang": "Danish",
      "sense": "measures which provide a sense of security without providing security",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "sikkerhedsteater"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "measures which provide a sense of security without providing security",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "comédie sécuritaire"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "measures which provide a sense of security without providing security",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "Sicherheitstheater"
    }
  ],
  "word": "security theater"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.