Panoptykon Foundation

The Panoptykon Foundation is a non-governmental organization originally from Poland whose main goal is to defend basic freedoms and human rights against the threats posed by the development of new surveillance technologies. The Foundation's activities are part of a larger research effort on the phenomenon of a surveillance society.

La Fundación fue establecida el 17 de abril de 2009 por Katarzyna Szymielewicz, Malgorzata Szumanska, Piotr Drobek y Krystian Legierski. Etymology

The name of the foundation is a to a Jeremy Bentham concept of a special prison, the Panopticon; in this prison a guard can constantly monitor the inmates' activities from a central surveillance station in the building while remaining invisible. The idea of ​​this solution is that it would cause prisoners to self-censure; would force them to control their own behavior for fear of being watched.

The concept of the Panopticon was later developed by Michel Foucault who extrapolated the concept into society as a whole. The French thinker said that we no longer need to build the Panopticon or be prisoners to be the effect of constant and omnipresent vigilance. A modern society can be perceived by itself as the Panopticon, where each is subject to its constant control.

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