The Limits of the Digital State and Individual Privacy: A Public Sphere Perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37241/jatss.2026.148Keywords:
public sphere, private space, digital space, privacy, surveillance societyAbstract
Introduction: Mutual trust lies at the heart of the social contract; yet, in the neoliberal era, this bond is being tested by the expanding limits of the digital state. This study problematizes the transformation of privacy not merely as a technical security breach, but as a deeper erosion of democratic legitimacy. It seeks to understand whether the digital sphere is evolving into a liberating 'agora' or a surveillance mechanism that threatens the individual's status as a political subject.
Method: Adopting a qualitative lens, the research weaves together a descriptive analysis with a theoretical critique grounded in political philosophy. The tension between the promise of digital freedom and the reality of surveillance society is interpreted through the comparative perspectives of Hannah Arendt’s public/private distinction and Jürgen Habermas’s communicative rationality.
Results or Findings: The analysis reveals a stark paradox: The digital sphere has morphed into a “transparency regime” reminiscent of a panopticon rather than a democratic public sphere. It is observed that the state is shifting from a service provider to a proactive structure of predictive policing, where privacy is commodified and ethical boundaries are redrawn by algorithms.
Discussion or Conclusion: The study concludes that privacy is not a luxury to be granted by the state, but a constitutive “constitutional threshold” that defines human dignity. To sustain legitimacy, policy must shift from data-hoarding to a privacy by design approach. Reclaiming the digital sphere as a space of freedom requires strictly limiting state authority through ethical and legal barricades.
Downloads
References
Arendt, H. (2023). İnsanlık Durumu, (B. S. Şener.Çev.). İletişim Yayınları.
Benjamin, R. (2019). Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the New Jim Code. Polity Press.
Cullen, R., & Reilly, P. (2007). Information privacy and trust in government: A citizen-based perspective from New Zealand. In Proceedings of the 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'07) (pp. 109–119). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/HICSS.2007.271
European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. (2016). Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (General Data Protection Regulation). Official Journal of the European Union, L119, 1–88. Retrived January, 01, 2026, from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj
Flaherty, D. (2000). Privacy impact assessments: An essential tool for data protection. Privacy Law & Policy Reporter, 7(5), 85–90.
Fuchs, C. (2023). Digital democracy and the digital public sphere. Routledge.
Giddens, A. (1985). The nation-state and violence: Volume two of a contemporary critique of historical materialism. University of California Press.
Habermas, J. (2019). Doğalcılık ve din arasında felsefi denemeler, (A. Nalbant, Çev.). Yapı Kredi Yayınları.
Habermas, J. (2021). Kamusallığın yapısal dönüşümü. (T. Bora & M. Sancar, Çev.). İletişim Yayınları.
Han, B.-C. (2017). Şeffaflık toplumu (H. Barışcan, Çev.). Metis Yayınları
Hildebrandt, M. (2018). Algorithmic regulation and the rule of law. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 376(2128), Article 20170355. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2017.0355
Kalloniatis, C., Kavakli, E., & Gritzalis, S. (2004). Security requirements engineering for e-government applications: Analysis of current frameworks. In R. Traunmüller (Ed.), Electronic government (EGOV 2004) (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3183, pp. 66–71). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30078-6_11
Lee, Y., Bradford, B., & Posch, K. (2024). The effectiveness of big data-driven predictive policing: Systematic review. Justice Evaluation Journal, 7(2), 127–160. https://doi.org/10.1080/24751979.2024.2371781
Lember, V., & Crompvoets, J. (2023). Public services and management in the digital age. In T. Bovaird & E. Loeffler (Eds.), Public management and governance (4th ed., pp. 141–152). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003282839-13
Maalla, H. A. (2021). Artificial intelligence in public sector: A review for government leaders about AI integration into government administrations. International Journal of Academic Research in Economics and Management Sciences, 10(4), 27–39. https://doi.org/10.6007/IJAREMS/v10-i4/11911
Margetts, H., & Dorobantu, C. (2019). Rethink government with AI. Nature, 568 (7751), 163-165. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01099-5
Maslej, N., Fattorini, L., Perrault, R., Gil, Y., Parli, V., Kariuki, N., Capstick, E., Reuel, A., Brynjolfsson, E., Etchemendy, J., Ligett, K., Lyons, T., Manyika, J., Niebles, J. C., Shoham, Y., Wald, R., Walsh, T., Hamrah, A., Santarlasci, L., … Oak, S. (2025). The AI Index 2025 annual report. Stanford University, Institute for Human-Centered AI. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2504.07139
Morozov, E. (2011). The net delusion: Dark side of internet freedom. PublicAffairs.
Paye, J. C. (2004). Terörle mücadele ve özel hayatın denetimi. Conatus Çeviri Dergisi, 1(1), 153–165.
Resmi Gazete. (2016, 7 Nisan). 6698 sayılı Kişisel Verilerin Korunması Kanunu (KVKK)
Stahl, B. C. (2008). Discourses on information ethics: The claim to universality. Ethics and Information Technology, 10(2-3), 97–108. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-008-9171-9
STM Savunma Teknolojileri Mühendislik ve Ticaret A.Ş. (2025, Ocak-Mart). Siber tehdit durum raporu. STM. https://thinktech.stm.com.tr/tr/siber-tehdit-durum-raporu-ocak-mart-2025
Susser, D., Roessler, B., & Nissenbaum, H. F. (2019). Online manipulation: Hidden influences in a digital world. Georgetown Law Technology Review, 4(1), 1–45. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3306006
Tallberg, J., Erman, E., Furendal, M., Geith, J., Klamberg, M., & Lundgren, M. (2023). The global governance of artificial intelligence: Next steps for empirical and normative research. International Studies Review, 25(3), Article viad040. https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viad040
Tanczer, L. M. (2020). 50 shades of hacking: How IT and cybersecurity industry actors perceive good, bad, and former hackers. Contemporary Security Policy, 41(1), 108–128. https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2019.1669336
Tanışık, S., & Bal, S. (2024). Dijital mahremiyet ve kurumsal sorumluluk: Kişisel verilerin korunmasında iletişim teknolojilerinin kamusal rolü. Yeni Medya, (16), 268–285. https://doi.org/10.55609/yenimedya.1424182
Teh, J. (2002). Privacy wars in cyberspace: An examination of the legal and business tensions in information privacy. Yale Journal of Law & Technology, 4, 1–96. https://yjolt.org/volume/4
Timisi, N. (2003). Yeni iletişim teknolojileri ve demokrasi. Dost Kitabevi Yayınları.
Turan, Y. (2024). Sosyal medyada gözetim ve mahremiyet algısı: Instagram kullanıcıları üzerine bir inceleme. Akdeniz Üniversitesi İletişim Fakültesi Dergisi, (47), 146–169. https://doi.org/10.31123/akil.1427283
USA PATRIOT Act, Pub. L. No. 107–56, 115 Stat. 272 (2001). https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ56/PLAW-107publ56.pdf
Uslaner, E. M. (2004a). Trust online, trust offline. Communications of the ACM, 47(4), 28–29. https://doi.org/10.1145/975817.975838
Uslaner, E. M. (2004b). Trust, civic engagement, and the internet. Political Communication, 21(2), 223–242. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584600490443895
Véliz, C. (2021). Privacy is power: Why and how you should take back control of your data. Penguin Random House.
Webster, F. (2021). Theories of the information society (4th ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315867854
Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. PublicAffairs.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
