Attributed toBruce Schneier.
securitytheater (uncountable)
- 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.
- Coordinate term:hygiene theater
2003 July 28,Bruce Schneier,Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World, Springer,page38:But some countermeasures provide the feeling of securityinstead of the reality. These are nothing more thansecurity theater.
2013 August 22, Jeff Jarvis, “As a Democrat, I am disgusted with President Obama”, inThe Guardian[1]:Ido 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 forsecurity theater.
2021 July 12, Sirin Kale, “Hygiene theatre: how excessive cleaning gives us a false sense of security”, inThe Guardian[2]:[Bruce] Schneier agrees that Covid-19 has ushered in an era of hygiene theatre. “Likesecurity theatre,” he says, “hygiene theatre comes from bad risk analysis – really, from ignorance.”
measures which provide a sense of security without providing security
