For most people, surveillance is something imposed, deliberate and targeted: CCTV cameras mounted on walls, wiretaps hidden out of sight, governments watching from above, institutions monitoring from a distance. However, they’re not the full picture.
Surveillance is deeply embedded in the digital systems we use. Telecoms, electronic payments, e-commerce platforms, social media channels, and other digital infrastructure we rely on daily have become part of how society functions. Yet, despite their convenience, these very systems may be quietly limiting our freedom tomorrow.
This is the paradox of the digital state: the more seamlessly systems work, the more they must see—and the more they see, the more control they have over people.
What Defines a “Surveillance State” Today
The surveillance state is now defined by how the digital infrastructure we all use is connected and how state capabilities and private sector data intersect. Just a few years back, a surveillance state was primarily associated with the systematic monitoring of a centralized authority over specific individuals or specific threats. The justification for covert actions related to it was to maintain security and public safety.
Today, it operates differently. It has a much wider scope, embedded and normalized within legal and economic systems.
Governments, financial institutions, telecommunications providers, and digital platforms generate and process data streams that, when combined, create a near-continuous record of behavior. That means more than six billion people now operating within digital ecosystems are constantly tracked through the use of such systems.
The distinction is subtle: traditional surveillance watched people, modern surveillance maps systems of life. Identity, movement, transactions, and communication can be identified and reconstructed.
Key Drivers of Expansion
If these systems can curtail individual freedom, why do they keep expanding?
These systems solve real problems—and they do it well. Their expansion is not driven by ideology, but by converging incentives that are practical, profitable, and politically compelling. They are rooted in how modern economies function and how governments govern at scale.
National security and geopolitical competition
One key driver is political in nature. Governments now seek more visibility for national security and administrative control as geopolitical tensions rise. Data is treated as both infrastructure and strategic asset—which is why states invest in it and not just in defense. Knowing flows of information, capital, and people strengthens preparedness and leverage.
Digitalization of services
Digital ID systems, real-time payment networks, smart cities, and other digital infrastructure are now ubiquitous parts of modern life. Governments are under pressure to modernize their services and move into integrated digital systems to reduce inefficiencies, eliminate bureaucratic friction, and provide better services.
China’s rollout of a national digital identity framework, which ties online access to verified identity and biometric authentication, illustrates how deeply these systems can embed control into participation itself.
Corporate data collection and its integration with public systems
Tech companies, fintech platforms, and telecoms have built business models around data that becomes, directly or indirectly, part of broader ecosystems.
Now, across industries, practically all workflows involve collecting, analyzing, and refining services through shared information. Moreover, data from private sectors often intersects with public systems through regulation, partnerships, or access requirements. This creates a blended ecosystem where the boundary between public authority and private data becomes porous.
We see this expansion differently across regions. China integrates digital systems in state-led infrastructure, maintaining firm control over its citizens. In contrast, the United States relies more on private-sector data ecosystems. In Europe, the EU constrains systems with regulatory frameworks to protect users.
The shift is happening at scale. Nearly 80% of the global population is covered by some form of national data privacy law, showing how these data systems are embedded in governance. More data and more integration provide more visibility, streamlining processes within and across private and public systems.
The Economic Case for Surveillance Infrastructure
Digital systems can easily be framed as mechanisms of control and their expansion as surveillance imposed on individuals. Why do they persist then?
Because they work. They have become engines of efficiency. In this sense, surveillance is tied to economic development, not just control.
Here’s where we see governments adopting these systems:
- Service delivery. Automated services and integrated systems across institutions help deliver public services faster.
- Tax collection and compliance. Online platforms make it easy for taxpayers to file their returns and comply with regulations.
- Financial inclusion. In developing countries, digital infrastructure brings unbanked individuals into formal financial systems.
- Infrastructure scaling. Infrastructure that once required decades to build physically can now be deployed digitally.
Seen through the benefits these systems bring, surveillance is but a mere byproduct of optimization. It persists because it is economically rational across both public and private sectors.
In fact, organizations are not reducing their reliance on data and digital systems; they are refining how they are used. Privacy has become the enabler that makes surveillance acceptable and scalable.
According to Cisco, 95% of organizations report that privacy investments deliver returns exceeding costs, with an average 1.6x return on privacy spending. This reveals that people are willing to participate in data-driven systems when they trust how their data is handled.
Privacy, in this context, enables data collection. It builds the trust necessary for data-driven systems to continue expanding. This is what makes surveillance infrastructure difficult to unwind. It’s sustained by incentives such as economic gains that reward its continued growth.
Risks to Individual Freedom
As data becomes centralized and interoperable across systems, the risks become systemic. Data breaches illustrate this scale. In 2025, 6.7 billion records were compromised in China alone. What’s even more alarming is that no single sector was insulated from attacks.
Data concentration and misuse
These risks do not require extreme scenarios to matter. Even routine data collection, such as collecting metadata, behavioral patterns, and system logs, can be used to profile individuals, many of whom are completely unaware that their data is being collected and used.
This scenario isn’t theoretical. A major tech firm, for instance, was levied $1.375 billion in fines for tracking and collecting customers’ data without their knowledge and consent.
Reduced anonymity in financial and digital systems
Individuals also risk losing their anonymity as more systems move into digital-only environments. Identity verification, integrated payment platforms, and real-name policies, for example, make it nearly impossible to operate outside traceable channels. Most consumer services are now consolidated into systems that record and retain activity.
While this sometimes feels like participation, the result is the same: persistent visibility and diminished anonymity.
Potential for political or social control
There is also the question of data governance. Who has access? Under what conditions? With what safeguards? Even in systems designed with strong legal frameworks, vulnerabilities arise through misuse, breaches, or policy shifts.
The impact is rarely abrupt. It creeps in and is gradually seen as reduced opacity, increased traceability, and the subtle narrowing of unobserved space. In essence, it’s freedom slowly dissipating along with the walls that separate digital infrastructure.
Diverging Global Models
While the underlying technologies are similar, states across the globe approach modern surveillance differently.
China’s model is direct. It’s centralized in state-led infrastructure where systems are fully integrated, and control is explicit. We see this in the digital ID system they launched in 2025, which requires all internet users to register through the National Online Identity Authentication App. This is seen as a way to deepen central control and tighten censorship.
In contrast, modern surveillance in the United States is more fragmented and largely private-sector driven. Technology firms are mainly in control of data collection and processing, guided by regulatory frameworks that vary by state.
The European Union has taken a more cautious approach. While it supports advancing digital identity and data-sharing frameworks, it is firm on protecting privacy and individual rights. It does so by building layers of regulation that constrain misuse and safeguard users.
In much of the developing world, approaches are more pragmatic. Governments adopt digital infrastructure to expand access and improve services. Often, they rely not on a single framework, but on a patchwork of multiple models.
Despite these differences, there are important areas of convergence. Both the EU and China, for example, recognize the value of large-scale data for research, economic development, and policy-making. All countries also face the same challenge: how to enable access to data while protecting the individuals behind it.
The divergence, then, is about what surveillance is optimized for. State control, market efficiency, or individual rights—these shape the systems people ultimately live within.
The Role of Infrastructure in Shaping Freedom
In the digital state, freedom is shaped by infrastructure. Digital ID, payment rails, data architectures, and other systems define the terms for participation. They set how individuals are recognized and how they move through digital and physical spaces. Once these systems are in place, there’s often no choice to opt out of those terms without limiting access.
This is what makes infrastructure powerful. It doesn’t impose control directly, but shapes behavior nonetheless.
Two Possible Trajectories
Looking ahead, we see two potential paths. One leads toward increased centralization and control through integrated systems. Another leans toward fragmented or decentralized approaches preserving autonomy.
In the first path, systems are unified, identities standardized, and data flows interconnected. When this happens, efficiency increases—but so does the concentration of visibility. The other limits interoperability to preserve autonomy. Systems are decentralized or fragmented to constrict monitoring and tracking of user behavior. Yet, this comes at the cost of efficiency and scale.
However, a third path may be possible: governed data sharing.
A proposal for a system of international data trusts may be useful in collaborative data sharing. In this model, data is a shared resource managed by multiple entities under defined rules. Data is neither fully controlled by states nor freely exploited by corporations, but stewarded for specific purposes with built-in safeguards.
The Quiet Architecture of Control
Surveillance is as infrastructural and economic as it is political. It’s embedded in a whole digital ecosystem where governments, corporations, and financial systems are all connected. The systems we use every day—digital payments, IDs, apps, and online platforms—are quietly turning into tools that can track, monitor, and influence people.
In this quiet architecture of control, surveillance and sovereignty are influenced by who shapes the very systems that make modern life function. The question remains, as everything becomes digital and connected, are we gaining convenience or slowly losing freedom?
Sources
https://iapp.org/news/a/identifying-global-privacy-laws-relevant-dpas
- 2024 – By our count, 137 countries now have national data privacy laws. This means 70% of nations worldwide, 6.3 billion people or 79.3% of the world’s population is covered by some form of national data privacy law.
- 1. Privacy has become a critical element and enabler of customer trust, with 94% of organizations saying their customers would not buy from them if they did not protect data properly.
- 2. Organizations strongly support privacy laws around the world, with 80% indicating legislation has had a positive impact on them.
- 3. The economics of privacy remain attractive, with 95% saying benefits exceed costs and the average organization realizing a 1.6x return on their privacy investment.
- 4. There has been relatively slow progress on building customer confidence with respect to AI; 91% of organizations still recognize they need to do more to reassure their customers.
- 5. Organizations are already getting significant value from generative AI applications, but they’re also concerned about the risks to their intellectual property or that the data entered could be shared with competitors or the public.
- 6. Organizations believe that global providers, operating at scale, can better protect their data compared to local providers.
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/07/31/online-scams-and-attacks-in-america-today/
- Roughly three-quarters of Americans (73%) have experienced an online scam or attacks
- Top 1 (48%) – online hackers stole credit/debit card info and made fraudulent charges
- Top 4 (24%) – a scam email, text message, or call led them to give away personal info
- More than nine-in-ten say online scams and attacks are a problem in the country, including 79% who describe them as a major problem.
- In our survey, roughly one-in-five U.S. adults (21%) say they have ever lost money because of an online scam or attack.
- 68% say the federal government is doing a very or somewhat bad job; three-in-ten say it’s doing a good job.
- 56% say technology companies are doing a bad job at this, versus 42% who express a favorable view of their efforts.
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2023/10/18/a-deep-dive-into-online-privacy-choices/
- 35% of Americans say they are very concerned about how companies are using the data they collect about them. We refer to them as the most concerned about this.
- 46% are somewhat concerned.
- 19% are not at all or not too concerned. We call them the least concerned.
- No One Is Safe
- In 2025, no single industry dominated the top breaches. While public sector and healthcare breaches still led the way, other industries were not far behind. Six of the top 10 breaches took place in APAC, with 6.7 billion records being compromised in China alone. When analyzing the top privacy violations, we found that privacy regulators issued almost $2.8 billion in fines. The highest fine of 2025, a $1.375 billion settlement with Google in Texas, was levied for tracking and collecting customers’ data without their knowledge.
https://www.forrester.com/blogs/ready-for-openclaw-to-pry-into-your-environment-and-grip-your-data/
https://academic.oup.com/ijlit/article/doi/10.1093/ijlit/eaae025/7904617
https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.13553
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/07/15/china-digital-id-internet-surveillance
- China is launching a digital ID system, giving Beijing greater control over online activity and further raising concerns about surveillance and censorship
https://www.article19.org/resources/china-new-internet-id-system-a-threat-to-online-expression/
- New digital identity system launched on July 12, 2025 – further constricts online anonymity – these regulations deepen central control and increase censorship power – policy requires internet users to register through the National Online Identity Authentication App using their national identification card and facial recognition
https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/policy-issues/privacy-and-data-protection.html
- Promoting respect for privacy is essential for a well-functioning digital economy. When individuals have confidence in the protections surrounding their personal data, they are more likely to engage in online activities, share information, and participate in the digital economy. This, in turn, drives economic growth, fosters innovation, and encourages the free flow of data across borders.
https://academic.oup.com/ijlit/article/doi/10.1093/ijlit/eaae025/7904617
– This article presents a comparative analysis of personal data governance in the EU and China, using the ‘four quadrants’ framework of Weber’s Integral Theory. Both jurisdictions seek to protect the individual’s right to control personal information. When it comes to the collective aspects of personal information, however, China’s Social Credit System gives the pursual of social objectives a degree of priority over individual rights unacceptable within EU contexts. The value of large-scale, pseudonymized data sets for research and policy-making is recognized in both the EU and China. Facilitating access to valuable data sets while also protecting individual privacy rights remains a key challenge. Similarities can also be found in each jurisdiction’s desire to maintain system integrity and secure digital ecosystems, albeit with different levels of sensitivity surrounding sovereignty and security concerns. The article concludes by proposing a system of international data trusts as a useful tool for facilitating collaborative data sharing and mutual confidence.
