Inverted Panoptic Surveillance

‘Quis custodiet ipos custodes?’
(Old Latin saying meaning: ‘Who will watch the watchers?’).

The Logo (right) accompanying the term ICT4Accountability symbolizes the panoptic- or all-seeing prison. In his book ‘Discipline and Punish’ (1977), one of the most influential theorizers of modern society, Michel Foucault, describes the panoptic prison as a metaphor for the power relations within modern society. The prison was originally invented by Jeremy Bentham in 1785. In the architecture of the ‘panopticon’ a central guard tower is erected in the middle of the prison, the windows in the tower allows the guard to look out, but no-one is able to look into the tower (think of blinded glass). Cells are built around the central tower within sight of the guard.

Without being able to view the guard in the centrally located tower, an all-seeing gaze is marked yet masked, at once visible and invisible. Foucault’s thesis follows that, since prisoners must therefore assume that they could be at any time under the watchful eye of the tower, they begin to self-discipline their behavior. Even if the guard is not present in the central tower, prisoners will feel ‘the gaze’ and will behave according to the rules. Michel Foucault applies this model or ‘diagram’ to society as a whole. The presence of (central) authority should be internalized by the people, creating self-discipline.