Information Openness of the State and Municipal Service: Panopticon Model

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the study of prospects and regulatory limitations of the development of the concept ‘information openness of the state and municipal services’. The authors focus on how the public function affects the activities of state and municipal employees not only in but also out the service. The principle of openness of the state and municipal service in modern society obliges to take a responsible approach to any information posted publicly on the Internet, even if it is not related to the service. Big data technologies and the analytical capabilities of neural networks allow us to collect information from various sources and deanonymize them by comparing them. As a result, any state and municipal employee who is present in the public space can be subjected to public control procedures at any time. The panopticon model is used as an explanatory model. It is transformed in the conditions of digitalization of modern society. Alongside the synopticum, the panopticon expands the supervisory capabilities of the government, but at the same time makes its representatives visible to the mass "observer". The model of a new panopticon determines the risks of the emergence and reproduction of social tension and distrust between the authorities and the population. This is also as any member of the public can act as an expert without having expert knowledge and skills. In order to avoid the termination of the information openness development of the power in the new panopticon, it seems promising to educate the citizens in the area of regulatory (legal and moral) grounds for the state and municipal employees’ activities. It is important to include rules governing the presence of the authorities in social media and determine the degree of responsibility of those violating the rules of behavior in public space into the administrative ethics codes.