How digital surveillance affects citizens: Who is in the tower?

Hronologija

1. 09:00
   NIN (otvara se u novom prozoru) prvi objavio

   Kako na građane utiče digitalni nadzor: Ko je u tornju?

   Ne pamtim šta sam pre tri nedelje čitao, kuda sam se kretao, sa kim sam sve razgovarao. Ponešto prizovem iz sećanja, ponešto nenamerno domislim, a jedan deo rekonstruišem na osnovu poruka u mobilnom telefonu i obaveza… Ceo tekst

   Ne pamtim šta sam pre tri nedelje čitao, kuda sam se kretao, sa kim sam sve razgovarao. Ponešto prizovem iz sećanja, ponešto nenamerno domislim, a jedan deo rekonstruišem na osnovu poruka u mobilnom telefonu i obaveza zabeleženih u kalendaru. Sećanje izranja iz čvorišta značenja koja pripisujemo svakodnevnim događajima.

   5.05.

   2025.

   Aplikacija Dečji novčanik daje roditeljima mogućnost da potvrđuju starost svoje dece na digitalnim platformama.

   Ipak, postoji zapis i o stotinama stvari koje sam tog dana uradio, a kojih se danas ne sećam. Sačuvana pretraga, podatak o lokaciji, vreme kada sam otvorio neku stranicu. Kada je reč o takvim pojedinostima, digitalni trag je pouzdaniji od mog sećanja.

   To me stavlja u neobičan položaj. O sopstvenom životu mogao bih ponešto da saznam od nekoga ko me nije uživo upoznao, a ima pristup takvim podacima.

   Lovac i lovina

   Lovac ne mora da vidi lovinu da bi utvrdio kuda se kretala. Dovoljan mu je trag. Razaznaje ih, povezuje sa drugim tragovima na osnovu kojih predviđa njeno ponašanje u prostoru. Isto važi i za lovinu – korisnika u digitalnom prostoru.

   O svima nama se prikupljaju podaci, a obim prikupljanja zavisi od toga koje uređaje koristimo i na šta smo pristali (iako to gotovo nikada ne razumemo).

   Kompanije sastavljaju profile od naših pretraga na mrežama, zadržavanja na objavama i nalozima na koje kliknemo. Iz tih tragova mogu da predvide poneku našu sklonost; u jednom istraživanju računar je na osnovu digitalnog ponašanja procenjivao određene crte ličnosti bolje od ljudi koji su tu osobu poznavali.

   Džeremi Bentam, britanski filozof, krajem osamnaestog veka zamislio je panoptikon – zatvor u kojem su ćelije raspoređene oko središnjeg tornja. Iz tornja stražar može da posmatra zatvorenike, dok oni ne mogu da vide njega. Zatvorenik ne zna da li je predmet posmatranja, da li stražar gleda nekog drugog ili je možda napustio svoje mesto. Posle nekog vremena, prisustvo stražara u tornju postaje nevažno. Sama mogućnost da je pod nadzorom dovoljna je da zatvorenik počne da se ponaša kao da ga neko neprestano posmatra.

   U digitalnom prostoru teže je odrediti toranj. Podaci o nama nalaze se kod različitih kompanija i ustanova, koje imaju svoje interese i različite mogućnosti da ih upotrebe. Ne postoji nužno jedan posmatrač koji sve vidi. Ipak, ova rasutost samo povećava neizvesnost. Još nam je teže da sagledamo kome je koji deo našeg života dostupan.

   Pritom, mi ne znamo koji će „stražar“ i kada pristupiti našim podacima i doneti zaključke o nama, jer ono što je sačuvano ne mora odmah da bude i pregledano.

   Ne postoji pogled niotkuda. Svako posmatranje već podrazumeva neko stanovište: nešto se izdvaja kao važno, nešto drugo ostaje izvan pažnje. Način na koji su podaci razvrstani određuje i ono što je iz njih moguće zaključiti.

   Gubitak neposrednosti

   Iz ugla moje struke, psihijatrije, zanima me šta neprekidni, skriveni pogled drugog čini našem doživljaju sveta. Ne moramo sve vreme da razmišljamo o digitalnom tornju da bi on proizveo promene u načinu na koji se ponašamo. Ponekad razmislim o nečemu što bih pretražio ili o objavi na koju bih kliknuo pitajući se (nakratko) kako bi to moglo da izgleda nekome ko pristupa tom podatku o meni. Tad u sopstveni postupak već unosim zamišljen pogled drugog iz digitalnog panoptikona. Poput Bentamovog zatvorenika, počinjem da zamišljam sebe iz perspektive stražara. Ali tu se ne zaustavljam. Razmišljam o tome šta moje interesovanje govori o meni. Zašto me je to zainteresovalo? Šta bi neko mogao da zaključi o mojim namerama? Radoznalost, koja me je do malopre jednostavno vodila prema nečemu, postaje predmet mog sopstvenog ispitivanja. Posmatram je sa strane, gotovo kao da ne pripada meni. I što više pokušavam da predvidim kako bih mogao biti protumačen, to manje pažnje posvećujem onome što me je prvobitno zanimalo.

   28.10.

   2026.

   Integralni tost, avokado, jaja i povrće: nutricionistkinja otkriva večeru koju sprema za 10 minuta kada nema energije za dugo kuvanje.

   Vremenom počinjemo da usvajamo pogled onoga ko nas nadzire. Dok nešto radimo, istovremeno zamišljamo kako taj postupak izgleda nekome drugom. Postajemo i posmatrač i posmatrani. Ono što smo ranije činili spontano sada proveravamo, procenjujemo, dovodimo u pitanje. A neprestano posmatranje sopstvenog iskustva može da promeni i samo iskustvo.

   Postupci ostavljaju tragove

   U psihijatriji srećemo mnogo radikalniji oblik ovakvog udaljavanja od neposrednog iskustva. U ranim fazama nekih psihotičnih poremećaja čovek može da doživljava sopstvene misli, pokrete i namere kao nešto neobično ili strano. Ono što se ranije odvijalo gotovo neprimetno sada se nameće pažnji osobe. Gubi se neposrednost sa kojom je do tada obitavao u svetu. Između njega i njegovog (do tada neodvojivog) iskustva umeće se pogled posmatrača.

   Stvorili smo društvene okolnosti u kojima nam se takav odnos prema sebi može učiniti razumljivim, čak i poželjnim. Ako znamo da naši postupci ostavljaju tragove koji mogu biti naknadno protumačeni, imamo razloga da o njima razmišljamo unapred. Da bismo izbegli neželjene zaključke drugih, počinjemo da nadziremo sopstvene postupke, namere, pa i interesovanja. Ono što u svom radikalnom obliku podseća na poremećaje neposrednosti subjektivnog iskustva postaje, u sasvim drugačijim okolnostima, način prilagođavanja svetu.

   Šta bi digitalni lovac mogao da sazna o meni na osnovu tragova koje ostavljam? Sada o tim tragovima počinjem da razmišljam i pre nego što ih ostavim. Mogućnost da će neko naknadno protumačiti moje postupke menja način na koji ih činim.

   Ne znam ko je u tornju mog panoptikona, ali sve češće iz njega posmatram samog sebe.

2. 09:00
   NIN (otvara se u novom prozoru)

   How digital surveillance affects citizens: Who is in the tower?

   I do not remember what I was reading three weeks ago, where I was going, or all the people I spoke to. I can recall some things from memory, unintentionally invent some others, and reconstruct one part on the basis of… Ceo tekst

   I do not remember what I was reading three weeks ago, where I was going, or all the people I spoke to. I can recall some things from memory, unintentionally invent some others, and reconstruct one part on the basis of messages on my mobile phone and obligations recorded in my calendar. Memory emerges from the web of meanings we assign to everyday events.

   And yet, there is also a record of hundreds of things I did that day that I no longer remember today. A saved search, location data, the time when I opened a page. When it comes to such details, the digital trace is more reliable than my memory.

   That places me in an unusual position. I could learn something about my own life from someone who has never met me in person, but has access to such data.

   Hunter and prey

   A hunter does not have to see the prey in order to determine where it has moved. A trail is enough. He distinguishes its signs and connects them with other traces on the basis of which he predicts its behaviour in space. The same applies to the prey — the user in digital space.

   Data are collected about all of us, and the scale of that collection depends on which devices we use and what we have agreed to (although we almost never understand it).

   Companies compile profiles from our online searches, the time we spend on posts, and the accounts we click on. From those traces, they can predict some of our tendencies; in one study, a computer assessed certain personality traits on the basis of digital behaviour better than people who knew that person.

   Jeremy Bentham, the British philosopher, imagined the panopticon in the late eighteenth century — a prison in which cells are arranged around a central tower. From the tower, a guard can watch the prisoners, while they cannot see him. A prisoner does not know whether he is being watched, whether the guard is looking at someone else, or whether he may have left his post. After some time, the guard’s presence in the tower becomes irrelevant. The mere possibility of being under surveillance is enough for the prisoner to begin behaving as though someone is watching him constantly.

   In digital space, it is harder to identify the tower. Data about us are held by different companies and institutions, which have their own interests and different capacities to use them. There is not necessarily a single observer who sees everything. Yet this dispersion only increases uncertainty. It becomes even harder for us to grasp which part of our lives is accessible to whom.

   At the same time, we do not know which “guard” will access our data, or when, and draw conclusions about us, because what is stored does not have to be reviewed immediately.

   There is no view from nowhere. Every act of observation already presupposes a standpoint: something is singled out as important, while something else remains outside attention. The way data are classified also determines what can be concluded from them.

   Loss of immediacy

   From the perspective of my profession, psychiatry, I am interested in what the continuous, hidden gaze of another does to our experience of the world. We do not have to think constantly about the digital tower for it to produce changes in the way we behave. Sometimes I think about something I would search for, or a post I would click on, and ask myself, briefly, how it might look to someone who has access to that piece of data about me. At that point, I am already introducing into my own action the imagined gaze of the other from the digital panopticon. Like Bentham’s prisoner, I begin to imagine myself from the guard’s perspective. But it does not stop there. I think about what my interest says about me. Why did it interest me? What might someone conclude about my intentions? Curiosity, which until a moment ago simply guided me towards something, becomes the subject of my own scrutiny. I observe it from the outside, almost as though it does not belong to me. And the more I try to predict how I might be interpreted, the less attention I pay to what interested me in the first place.

   Over time, we begin to adopt the gaze of the one who watches us. While doing something, we simultaneously imagine how that action looks to someone else. We become both observer and observed. What we once did spontaneously, we now check, assess and call into question. And the constant observation of one’s own experience can alter the experience itself.

   Actions leave traces

   In psychiatry, we encounter a far more radical form of this distancing from immediate experience. In the early stages of some psychotic disorders, a person may experience their own thoughts, movements and intentions as something unusual or alien. What had previously unfolded almost unnoticed now imposes itself on the person’s attention. The immediacy with which they had until then inhabited the world is lost. Between the person and their experience, hitherto inseparable, the gaze of an observer intrudes.

   We have created social circumstances in which such a relation to oneself may appear understandable, even desirable. If we know that our actions leave traces that may later be interpreted, we have reason to think about them in advance. In order to avoid others drawing unwanted conclusions, we begin to monitor our own actions, intentions and even interests. What in its radical form resembles disorders of the immediacy of subjective experience becomes, in entirely different circumstances, a way of adapting to the world.

   What could the digital hunter learn about me on the basis of the traces I leave behind? I now begin to think about those traces even before I leave them. The possibility that someone will later interpret my actions changes the way I carry them out.

   I do not know who is in the tower of my panopticon, but increasingly I watch myself from it.