On the undecidability of the Panopticon detection problem

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that detecting modern ICT-based Panopticons, as continuous surveillance structures, is an undecidable problem using formal computational models, highlighting fundamental limits in surveillance detection.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework and proves that the problem of detecting ICT-based Panopticons is undecidable within formal computational systems.

Findings

Detection of ICT-based Panopticons is undecidable.

Constructs Turing Machines with unprovable Panopticon status.

Highlights limits of formal systems in surveillance detection.

Abstract

The Panopticon (which means "watcher of everything") is a well-known structure of continuous surveillance and discipline proposed by Bentham in 1785. This device was, later, used by Foucault and other philosophers as a paradigm and metaphor for the study of constitutional power and knowledge as well as a model of individuals' deprivation of freedom. Nowadays, technological achievements have given rise to new, non-physical (unlike prisons), means of constant surveillance that transcend physical boundaries. This, combined with the confession of some governmental institutions that they actually collaborate with these Internet giants to collect or deduce information about people, creates a worrisome situation of several co-existing Panopticons that can act separately or in close collaboration. Thus, they can only be detected and identified through the expense of (perhaps considerable) effort. In this paper we provide a theoretical framework for studying the detectability status of Panopticons that fall under two theoretical, but not unrealistic, definitions. We show, using Oracle Turing Machines, that detecting modern day, ICT-based, Panopticons is an undecidable problem. Furthermore, we show that for each sufficiently expressive formal system, we can effectively construct a Turing Machine for which it is impossible to prove, within the formal system, either that it is a Panopticon or it is not a Panopticon.