Skip to main content
Gifts from The Morning Star
How virtual power is imprisoning us in a surveillance society

Monitored: Business and Surveillance in a Time of Big Data
by Peter Bloom
(Pluto Press, £16.99)

THE panopticon, philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s unrealised design for a total institution, enabled a single unseen warder to observe its every inmate.

In Monitored, Peter Bloom explains that advances in surveillance technology are making all of us prisoners in the electronic equivalent of Bentham’s blueprint.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
satie
Books / 18 July 2025
18 July 2025

ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes an exuberant blend of emotion and analysis that captures the politics and contrarian nature of the French composer

Pic: Kharsohtun/CC
Books / 25 May 2025
25 May 2025

ANDY HEDGECOCK admires a critique of the penetration of our lives by digital media, but is disappointed that the underlying cause is avoided

Book Review / 25 March 2025
25 March 2025
ANDREW HEDGECOCK relishes visual storytelling with no respect for genres, movements or styles
Daniel Lind-Ramos, Ensamblajes, Nottingham Contemporary
Exhibition review / 20 February 2025
20 February 2025
ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes two exhibitions that blur the boundaries between art and community engagement
Similar stories
Daniel Lind-Ramos, Ensamblajes, Nottingham Contemporary
Exhibition review / 20 February 2025
20 February 2025
ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes two exhibitions that blur the boundaries between art and community engagement
RESILIENCE: (Right) Stand Up To Racism protest on October 26
Features / 31 December 2024
31 December 2024
The Morning Star sorts the good eggs from the rotten scoundrels of the year
ARROGANCE AND IGNORANCE: Group of six European men sitting,
Book Review / 24 September 2024
24 September 2024
FRANCOISE VERGES introduces a powerful new book that explores the damage done by colonial theft
(L) A resident of Burnthouse Lane estate; (R) Derek, a homel
Books / 6 August 2024
6 August 2024
JOHN GREEN appreciates two photobooks that study the single room of a homeless hostel resident, and a council estate in Exeter