DIGITAL PANOPTICON” AS AN OBJECTIVE REALITY OF THE GLOBAL WORLD

Abstract

Modern technologies expand opportunities for human development: life dynamics
increase, digital platforms are created for educational, scientific, as well as political
purposes, new opportunities arise for controlling authorities, and communicative practices
are improving. At the same time, there are new dangers to which people are exposed. The
report, prepared for the start of the Davos Economic Forum in 2019, focuses on technological
instability and introduces the concept of “Digital panopticon”, which refers to new forms of
social control - face recognition, gait analysis, microchipping, digital lip reading. Thanks
to the spread of these technologies, we are moving into a world in which all data about us
is collected, stored and tested through artificial intelligence algorithms. Digital technology
provides an unprecedented level of control over societies. In socio-political practice, the
term “digital totalitarianism” has appeared, which is understood as total digital control with
the help of cameras, gadgets, digital applications, artificial intelligence programs for human
behavior and actions to further build its rating in society. The most famous practice of digital
totalitarianism is the social credit system in China, which was introduced in 2014. Analogues
of the social credit system are also used in other countries, for example, in the USA, Germany,
Great Britain, and France. The danger of an invasion of the state and society into the private
life of a person in the context of digitalization does not decrease, but rather increases. The
omnipotence of security agencies and the related restrictions on human rights and freedoms
is a problem not only of authoritarian societies, but also of democratic states. Combining
the maximum use of the opportunities provided by digital technologies with the benefits for
humans and the secure information space, which is created, to a decisive extent, by the efforts
of the state, we see the effective development of the information society in the 21st century.