The Panopticon Metaphor

The idea of a panopticon comes from the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. A panopticon originally was a building that allowed for all the inmates to be observed by a single watchman. The interesting part of this design was that the inmates could not tell if they were being observed or not. Today, the panopticon serves as a metaphor for digital surveillance and data capture. An example of this is when Edward Snowden revealed to the world that the NSA has been spying on people by recording people’s phone and text conversations. Until Snowden revealed that Americans were being spied upon, people were blissfully unaware of this massive invasion of privacy.