Description
Book SynopsisThe Panoptic Sort was published in 1993. Its focus was on privacy and surveillance. But unlike the majority of publications addressing these topics in the United States at the time that were focused on the privacy concerns of individuals, especially those related to threats associated with government surveillance, that book sought to direct public toward the activities of commercial firms. It was highly critical of the failure of scholars and political activists to pay sufficient attention to the threats to individual autonomy, collective agency, and the exercise of social responsibility. The Panoptic Sort was intended to help us all to understand just what was at stake when the bureaucracies of government and commerce gathered, processed, and made use of an almost unlimited amount of personal, and transaction-generated information to manage social, economic, and political activities within society.It argued that unlike Foucault''s panoptic prison, which involved continual, all-encompa
Trade ReviewSurveillance capitalism may have been birthed by Google but its gestation began towards the end of the twentieth century. This welcome reissue and update of Oscar Gandy's signal classic, The Panoptic Sort, comes with a luminous afterword, connecting digital discrimination in the 'dot-coms' with the exploitative activities of today's platforms. Their inequitable global challenge is unflinchingly explained along with hints of hope for a fairer future." - David Lyon, Director, The Surveillance Studies Centre, Queen's University
Thirty years ago, one might have thought, The Panoptic Sort, a brilliant concept, mainly of academic interest. Time has revealed its deadly precision - time lost to ravaging surveillance, incipient schemes for sorting people out, and the rise of a class of powerful controllers. In the Second Edition, Oscar Gandy offers a reprise, including a generous review of thirty years of work, which * it must be said - now, only, is catching up with his groundbreaking ideas. The book is invaluable for every discipline, every stripe of public good activist, and every policy-maker around the globe." -Helen Nissenbaum, Professor, Cornell University *
A masterful book of undisputed importance, The Panoptic Sort examines the forebearers of today's surveillance regimes. At a time when society is being asked to reckon with discriminatory technologies of power, Gandy's seminal work equips us with the tools to understand-and challenge-sociotechnical systems of control." -Seeta Peña Gangadharan, Associate Professor, London School of Economics and Political Science
Table of ContentsList of Tables and Figures Acknowledgments Chapter 1: Prologue Chapter 2: Information and Power Chapter 3: Operating the Panoptic Sort Chapter 4: Corporate Perspectives on the Panoptic Sort Chapter 5: Relationships and Expectations Chapter 6: The Social Origins of Views on Privacy Chapter 7: A Data Protection Regime Chapter 8:Conclusion Notes About the Book and Author Index
