Digital Panopticon Dilemmas: A Study on Contact Tracing Apps Carried Out by the Ministry of Health

Year 2023, , 46 - 59, 20.12.2023

Elifnur Terzioğlu

https://doi.org/10.26650/JECS2023-1256957

Abstract

Panopticon, often referred to alongside Michel Foucault and Jeremy Bentham, is a theory that explains the relationship between power and knowledge. Surveillance has gradually become a digital phenomenon as technology has developed, taking on a post-panopticon feature. Thus, it has become possible to monitor the entire flow of information. Although some individuals see this situation as a positive because it saves time and provides digital satisfaction, discussions around it mention that it restricts personal rights and freedoms in most societies. Although individuals voluntarily accept being watched in digital public spaces, they often forget that such surveillance will place them in some extraordinary situations that they might not agree with. During the Covid-19 pandemic, which affected the entire world, governments implemented some digital applications in order to track and manage their population. Through these applications, known as contact tracing systems, there was an attempt to control the spread of the illness. These systems used mobile phone applications to record personal data. This study analyzes 49 countries whose Ministries of Health applied contract tracing applications during the Covid-19 pandemic process through the digital panopticon perception, which would be labeled as classified data according to their democracy indexes.

Keywords

Digital Panopticon, Surveillance Cultures, Contact-tracing Apps, Covid-19

References

• Alanka, Ö., Çimen, Ü., & Değirmenci, F. (2022). Cyberchondria as Digital Psychopathology: Covid 19 Pandemic Example. Yüzüncü Yıl Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, (56), 185-202. google scholar
• Bauman, Z. & Lyon, D. (2012). Liquid Surveillance: A Conversation. Cambridge: Polity Publications. google scholar
• Becker, M. (2019). Privacy in the digital age: comparing and contrasting individual versus social approaches towards privacy. Ethics and Information Technology, 21 (4). 307-317, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-019-09508-z google scholar
• Bengio, Y., Ippolito, D., Janda, R., Jarvie, M., Prud’homme, B., Rousseau,J., Sharma, A., Yu, Y. (2021). Inherent privacy limitations of decentralized contact tracing apps. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, (28)1,193-195, https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocaa153 google scholar
• Beniger, JR. (1986). The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society. Harvard University Press. google scholar
• Bentham, J. (2011). The panopticon writings. Verso Books. google scholar
• Big Brother is Watching You. Retrieved from https://literarydevices,net/big-brother-is- watching-you/ Accessed 28.06.2022 google scholar
• Bossewitch, J. & Sinnreich, A. (2012). The end of forgetting: Strategic agency beyond the panopticon. New Media & Society, 15 (2). google scholar
• Boyd, D. & Crawford, K. (2012). Critical questions for big data: Provocations for a cultural, technological, and scholarly phenomenon. Information, Communication & Society. 15(5): 662-679. google scholar
• Boyne, R. (2000). Post-Panopticism. Economy and Society, (29)2. google scholar
• Brivot, M. & Gendron, Y. (2011). Beyond panopticism: On the ramifications of surveillance in a contemporary professional setting. Accounting, Organizations and Society, (36). google scholar
• Caluya, G. (2010). The post-panoptic society? Reassessing Foucault in surveillance studies. Social Identities, (16). google scholar
• Confessore, N. (2018). Cambridge Analytica and Facebook: The Scandal and the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook: The Scandal and the Fallout So Far. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-scandal-fallout.html Accessed 28.06.2022 google scholar
• Covid-19 Apps. Google Play, Playstore. https://play.google.com/store Accessed 11.10.2022 google scholar
• De Saulles, M. & Horner, D.S. (2011). The portable panopticon: Morality and mobile technologies. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society. google scholar
• Değirmenci, F. (2020). The Digitalization of Politics: The New Communication Devices and the Issue of Political Participation. in M. S. Erciş & E. E. Başar (ed,). New Communication Approaches in the Digitalized World, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 273-288. google scholar
• Democracy Index 2021: The China Challenge. Retrieved from https://www,eiu,com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2021/ Accessed 21.11.2022 google scholar
• Dobson, J. E. & Fisher, P. F. (2007). The panopticon’s changing geography. Geographical Review, 97(3), 307-323, doi: 10,1111/j.1931-0846.2007.tb00508.x google scholar
• Duan, S. X. & Deng, H. (2022). Exploring privacy paradox in contact tracing apps adoption. Internet Research. google scholar
• Edri, (2021). EDRis interactive Annual Report: A year in review of the digital rights field. Retrieved from https://edri,org/our-work/edris-interactive-annual-report-a-year-in-review-of-the-digital-rights-field/ Accessed 28.06.2022 google scholar
• Eismann, K., Fischer-PreBler, D., & Fischbach, K. (2022). Applied Ethics and Digital Information Privacy: Informing the Design of Covid-19 Contact Tracing Apps. Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 26, https://doi.org/10.3127/ajis.v26i0.3097 google scholar
• Flawed/Defective Democracy. Retrieved from https://www,populismstudies,org/Vocabulary/flawed-defective-democracy/ Accessed 15.11.2022 google scholar
• Foucault Welles, B. & Meirelles, I. (2015). Visualizing computational social science: The multiple lives of a complex image. Science Communication, 37(1): 34-58. google scholar
• Foucault, M. (1980a). Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977. London: Harvester Press, 98. google scholar
• Foucault, M. (1980b). The Eye of Power, in C, Gordon (ed.). Power/Knowledge, Brighton: Harvester, 147-165. google scholar
• Full Democracy. Retrieved from https://www,populismstudies,org/Vocabulary/fulldemocracy/Access Date 15.11.2022 google scholar
• Habermas, J. (1992). The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Polity Press. google scholar
• Haggerty, K. D. (2006). Tear down the walls: on demolishing the panopticon, in Lyon, D, (Ed,), Theorizing surveillance, Willan. google scholar
• Hamann, J. (2020). Governance by Numbers: A Panopticon Reversed?. Politics and Governance, 8 (2). google scholar
• Hennink, M., Hutter, I., & Bailey, A. (2020). Qualitative research methods. Sage. google scholar
• Hookway, N. (2008). Entering the blogosphere’: some strategies for using blogs in social research. Qualitative Research, (8)1, 91-113. google scholar
• Johnson, B. & Christensen, L. (2014). Educational Research: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Approaches. Fifth Edition, Sage Publications. google scholar
• Kelion, L. (2020). Coronavirus: Contact-tracing apps face further hitches. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53051783Accessed 28.06.2022 google scholar
• Kretzschmar M. (2020). Impact of delays on effectiveness of contact tracing strategies for COVID-19: a modelling study. The Lancet Public Health, (5)8,e452-e459, ISSN 2468-2667, https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(20)30157-2 google scholar
• Lee, C. S. (2021). Contact tracing apps for self-quarantine in South Korea: rethinking datafication and dataveillance in the COVID-19 age. Online Information Review, (45)4, 810-829. google scholar
• Light, A. (2010). The Panopticon reaches within: how digital technology turns us inside out. IDIS 3, 583-598, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12394-010-0066-7 google scholar
• Linz, J. J. & Linz, J. J. (2000). Totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. Lynne Rienner Publishers. google scholar
• Lv A., Luo T. & Duckett, J. (2022). Centralization vs, Decentralization in COVID-19 Responses: Lessons from China. J Health Polit Policy Law,1;47(3):411-427, doi: 10.1215/03616878-9626908, PMID: 34847219. google scholar
• Lyon, D. (1993). An Electronic Panopticon? A Sociological Critique of Surveillance Theory. The Sociological Review, 41(4):653-678, doi:10.1111/j.1467-954X.1993.tb00896.x google scholar
• Martin, T., Karopoulos, G., Hernandez-Ramos, J., Kambourakis, G., Fovino, I. (2020). Demystifying COVID-19 digital contact tracing: a survey on frameworks and mobile apps. arXivcs 2020, doi: 10.1155/2020/8851429. google scholar
• Mattelart, A. (2010). The Globalization of Surveillance: The Origin of the Securitarian Order 1st Edition, Polity. google scholar
• Menocala, A. R., Fritzb, V., Raknerc, L. (2008). Hybrid regimes and the challenges of deepening and sustaining democracy in developing countries. South African Journal of International Affairs. 15(1):29-40. google scholar
• Moosa, I. A. (2020). The effectiveness of social distancing in containing Covid-19. Applied economics. google scholar
• Nissenbaum, H. (1998). Protecting Privacy in an Information Age: The Problem of Privacy in Public, Law and Philosophy.17(5/6), 559, https://doi.org/10.2307/3505189 google scholar
• Orwell, G. (2003). 1984. (N, Akgören, Trans,), Can Publish. (5). google scholar
• Oscar, H. & Gandy, Jr. (1989). The Surveillance Society: Information Technology and Bureaucratic Social Control, Journal of Communication. (39)3, 61-76, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1989.tb01040.x. google scholar
• Panoptykon Foundation. Retrieved from https://panoptykon.org/ Accessed 27.06.2022 google scholar
• Parker, M. C., Fraser, L., Abeler-Dorner, and Bonsall, D. (2020). The ethics of instantaneous contract tracing using mobile phone apps in the control of COVID-19 pandemics. https://github,com/BDIPATHOGENs/covid-19_instant_tracing/blob/master/ The ethics of instantaneous contract tracing using mobile phone apps in the control of pandemics, pdf, Accessed 19.09.2022 google scholar
• Piao, Y. & Cui, D. (2021). Privacy Analysis and Comparison of Pandemic Contact Tracing Apps. KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems, 15, 11, (2021), 4145-4162.doi: 10.3837/tiis.2021.11.015. google scholar
• Pimenta, E. D. M. (2010). The city of sun: panopticon, synopticon and omniopticon-big brother and the giant with thousand eyes, In Pimenta, E, D, M, (Eds,), Low power society- continuous hyperconsumption and the end of the medium class in a hyperurban planet UK: ASA Art and Technology Limited ,260-303. google scholar
• Poster, M. (1990). The Mode of Information: Poststructuralism and Social Context. University of Chicago Press. google scholar
• Rahman, M. S. (2014). Statistical analysis of democracy index. Humanomics 30(4):373-384. google scholar Ramageri, B. M. (2010). Data mining techniques and applications. Indian Journal of Computer Science and Engineering. (1)4, .301-305. google scholar
• Raskar, R., Schunemann, I., Barbar, R., Vilcans, K., Gray, J., Vepakomma, P., et al. (2020). Apps gone rogue: maintaining personal privacy in an epidemic. arXivcs 2020 google scholar
• Rosen, J. (2004). The Naked Crowd Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious Age. Random House Inc. google scholar
• Rowe, F. (2018). Being critical is good, but better with philosophy! From digital trans- formation and values to the future of IS research. European Journal of Information Systems, 27(3), 380-393. google scholar
• Rowe, F. (2020). Contact tracing apps and values dilemmas: A privacy paradox in a neoliberal world. International Journal of Information Management, 55, Article 102178. google scholar
• Safaei, S. (2020). Foucault’s Bentham: Fact or Fiction?. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10767-019-09342-7.pdf google scholar
• Samuel, G., Roberts, S. L., Fiske, A., Lucivero, F., McLennan, S., Phillips, A., Hayes S. & Johnson, S.B. (2022). COVID-19 contact tracing apps: UK public perceptions. Critical Public Health, 32:1, 31-43, DOI: 10.1080/09581596.2021.1909707 google scholar
• Sartori, G. (2017). The Transformative Power of Near-Death Experiences: How the Messages of NDEs Can Positively Impact the World. Watkins Publishing. google scholar
• Seto, E., Challa, P., Ware, P. (2021). Adoption of COVID-19 Contact Tracing Apps: A Balance Between Privacy and Effectiveness. J Med Internet Res, 23(3):e25726. google scholar
• Sharon, T. (2020). Blind-sided by privacy? Digital contact tracing, the Apple/Google API and big tech’s newfound role as global health policy makers. Ethics and Information Technology, 1-13. google scholar
• Sprague, R. D. (2007). From Taylorism to the omnipticon: expanding employee surveillance beyond the workplace. Journal of Computer & Information Law, 25 (1), 1-35. google scholar
• Steadman, P. (2012). Samuel Bentham’s panopticon. Journal of Bentham Studies, 14(1), 1-30. google scholar
• WHO. (2021). Contact tracing in the context of COVID-19: Interim Guidance. 6-9. google scholar