The digital world and the right to informational self-determination

In the digital world the false dichotomy between a private and a public self is accentuated, because, for the first time in humanity’s history, total and complete control is possible. The digital world is an artificial world; control is embedded in the system, in the sense that those who have constructed and maintain it are able to know and monitor at all times (see §01.00.17) all behaviour in it (regardless of whether that of individuals or artificial Beings). This is a fundamental, tremendous change from the analogue world. In the analogue world the state may be omnipresent and the government (relatively) omnipotent, nevertheless these are only possibilities, not facts. The reality depends on the processing capabilities available at any given time. In other words, the state does know and the government can know all that an individual does in any moment of his or her life, however whether they actually actively know this, whether they actually process any and all information so as to acquire that knowledge is a completely different matter. From the beginning of humanity until very recently, processing was done manually (e.g. on paper), and therefore actual knowledge was impossible to achieve. Computing has improved processing capacities tremendously, but the immense variation of the analogue world still impedes actual, real-time total knowledge, at least it does today. Significantly, however, this is not true in the digital world, where the complete opposite is the case.

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