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The Electronic Panopticon

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2015

Publication Title

The Chronicle of Higher Education: The Chronicle Review

Abstract

Is the web private enough for you? Maybe you’re OK with every search you’ve made, every site visited, every email sent all being stored in databases linked to your name or account by your service provider, your phone carrier, or Google. Maybe you’re OK with Amazon knowing not just what’s in your Kindle library but also what you’ve actually read from it, and when. Maybe you’re OK with that data not just being stored in the cyberequivalent of a dusty warehouse, but vigorously sought after, bid on, and pursued through coercion by marketers, the police, and spies eager to know you better. Not to mention the aggregated identity and financial information compromised repeatedly by hackers breaching the firewalls of retailers, banks, and government agencies.

It’s just the cost of doing business, right? The trade-off for convenience and safety. As citizens and consumers, we must aggressively defend against deep, systematic prying into our intellectual lives.

Keywords

Electronic Panopticon, Surveillance, Privacy, Data Protection, Technology Ethics, Digital Rights, Internet Law, Privacy Law

Publication Citation

Neil M. Richards, The Electronic Panopticon, The Chronicle of Higher Education: The Chronicle Review (Mar. 16, 2015), https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-electronic-panopticon/

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