ABSTRACT
One of the most fundamental themes in the transformation of the contemporary world is none other than the migration of human communications from direct physical, face-to-face contact to indirect, non-physical digital contact. In the early nineteenth century it took full six weeks for the British government to send a telegraph message from London to Delhi. Today all it takes is a press of the button and the message reaches Delhi in a matter of seconds. This transformation of communication from physical to digital networks is the basis for the expansion of global telecommunications networks but it is also the rise of biopolitical surveillance technologies and police power. What is the impact of the current COVID-19 pandemic on this rise of police power? This chapter revisits the theories of Agamben and Deleuze and Guattari to examine cybersecurity and privacy issues in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is argued that the current crisis pandemic will result in the rise in surveillance technologies and police power, in what Foucault might call the "Panopticon, " and that it will confirm the emergence of biopolitics as a major theme in political theorization in the post-COVID-19 landscape. We will base our analysis specifically on Agamben's theory of biopolitics and Deleuze's theory of "control societies.”. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.