We’re living in a panopticon. And that’s not good. Jake Goldenfein, researcher at the Centre for Media and Communications Law, University of Melbourne, notes that it’s important to remember the corrective purposes of Bentham’s panopticon when considering it as a metaphor for modern surveillance.
“The relevance of the panopticon as a metaphor begins to wither when we start thinking about whether contemporary types of visuality (effectively digital and data-driven) are analogous to the central tower concept. For example, whether this type of visuality is as asymmetrical, and – I think more importantly – being co-opted for the same political exercise. Does the fact that we don’t know we’re being watched mean we are being normalised in the way the panopticon was intended to correct behaviour?”
As Goldenfein suggests, the asymmetrical exposure of inmates in Bentham’s building is of a different order to how government bodies such as GCHQ conduct surveillance. In the panopticon the occupants are constantly aware of the threat of being watched – this is the whole point – but state surveillance on the internet is invisible; there is no looming tower, no dead-eye lens staring at you every time you enter a URL.
It wasn’t until the Snowden leaks that the scale of NSA and GCHQ operations became known. This arguably makes the system more panoptic post-Snowden, when we are aware of it, but it hasn’t been the official rhetoric. The original emphasis, and still the emphasis today, hasn’t been on correcting behaviour but on providing security, namely from terrorists.
Another important difference is the relative intangibility of data surveillance. With Bentham’s panopticon, and to some extent CCTV, there is a physical sense of exposure in the face of authority.
In the private space of my personal browsing I do not feel exposed – I do not feel that my body of data is under surveillance because I do not know where that body begins or ends. We live so much of our lives online, share so much data, but feel nowhere near as much attachment for our data as we do for our bodies. Without physical ownership and without an explicit sense of exposure I do not normalise my actions. If anything, the supposed anonymity of the internet means I do the opposite.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/23/panopticon-digital-surveillance-jeremy-bentham
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