Cyberpunk, the Postglobal and the Posthuman

In cyberpunk stories, explosions and futuristic weapons aren't usually the scariest things. Instead, they show up when well-known lines start to blur. One of the largest boundary changes of the last five years is the blurring of the lines between digital data and the human body. What used to be private, personal, and internal is now always being watched, recorded, and looked at. In today's society, the body makes information instead of just being there. Wearable technologies and apps that help you keep track of your health are now a normal part of everyday life. Devices like Apple Watches, Fitbits, and smartphone health applications keep track of things like your heart rate, sleep patterns, physical activity, oxygen levels, and even your menstrual cycle. These tools claim to give people knowledge and control over their health, and they are often marketed as empowering. This adjustment, though, means more than merely being useful. It shows a change in how people see the body, from seeing it as a lived experience to seeing it as a series of measurements. This change in boundaries happened faster after the COVID-19 pandemic, when digital health monitoring developed quickly. Health data became highly crucial for making decisions about safety, risk, and productivity. At the same time, commercial companies might access incredibly personal biological data. Reporting by NPR has highlighted growing concerns about how period-tracking and health apps may collect, store, and potentially expose sensitive reproductive data, especially in the wake of shifting abortion laws [NPR, 2022]. Taking care of yourself could develop into snooping. Cyberpunk theory can help us figure out why this transition makes us feel bad. Posthumanism regards the human body as a hybrid system interconnected with technology, rather than a static biological boundary. Wearable technology improve perception by turning physiological processes into real-time feedback. Technology can read the body before we do by using vibrations to show a quicker heart rate or an abnormal rhythm. Data is what makes human experience possible. But cyberpunk often stresses that technology needs electricity systems to work. Data is not impartial. Institutions that often care more about making money than helping people collect, analyze, and control it. Your health data can affect your ability to receive insurance, get a job, keep your reproductive health secret, and get resources. In this view, the body is valuable not because of what it has done, but because of what it can do that can be quantified. Globalization makes this boundary disintegration much worse. Health apps work across borders and save data on international servers that have different privacy rules. A person may produce bodily data in one nation, while companies scrutinize and capitalize on it in another. Cyberpunk often shows this: systems that go beyond national borders but people are still affected by them. This change really does have benefits. Early medical detection, keeping an eye on chronic illnesses, and making healthcare easier to get have all saved lives. Health technology gives many users peace of mind and control. But the hazards are not spread out evenly. Communities that are already under more surveillance are generally more at risk when physiological data becomes institutional knowledge. In a society based on data, who really owns the body? This is a key question in cyberpunk. When biological data is turned into a product, personal freedom becomes weak. It gets harder and harder to tell the difference between care and control. In Blade Runner, artificial beings try hard to be seen as more than just things that were made. Today, people have a quieter version of same problem. As our bodies become dashboards, algorithms, and projections, we may be perceived more as data sets than as persons. The breakdown of the line between body and data makes us question if technological advancement can go hand in hand with respect, or whether making ourselves measurable means we are more likely to be controlled.

#### Introduction

Having privacy used to be personal to yourself where what you did was unnoticed. Within the last five years, that boundary has changed tremendously. Digital surveillance, whether that is through games, apps, cameras, and facial recognition, has made and allowed being constantly monitored very normal on a day to day basis. This shows a core theme of cyberpunk, technology develops faster than its rules and regulations to maintain its ethics.

What Has Changed

Surveillance is not just at the government and law enforcement level. It is with civilians using our phones. An article by Wired talks about TikTok collecting and storing data from users, that includes location and data that can identify specific devices (Wired, 2026). This goes on in the background even when app users are not posting and unfortunately the users do not even know the extent of their data being collected. This blurs lines between sharing the information being shared and being constantly monitoring. Surveillance goes beyond apps, it also includes studying and scanning people’s facial and physical features. Facial recognition is being put in public places that can identify people based on their biometric data. According to an article by ISACA, this brings lots of privacy concerns because biometric information like faces cannot be changed like a password and credit card information. This data can be stored, shared, and used without people even knowing they are being tracked. Additionally, facial recognition data is normally not encrypted so it is easier to be hacked and exploited by criminals (ISACA, 2025). This also weakens the boundary between public spaces and personal privacy.

These show how privacy has to be guarded and protected opposed to it being the default that most people would expect.

What Is Driving This Shift

Several of things are speeding up the growth of surveillance: Technological advancement: AI and facial recognition tools are cheaper, faster, and more accurate.

Financial benefits: Companies make profit from collecting and selling user data, while cities are encouraged to use technology to monitor public places

Social Acceptance: Constant data collection has become expected in exchange for convenience and connectivity.

Weak regulation: Lawmakers struggle to keep up with quickly evolving surveillance technologies.

These agree with cyberpunk’s focus on powerful systems working beyond meaningful public control (ISACA, 2025).

Cyberpunk Connections

A common theme within cyberpunk is a world where people are being constantly watched by powerful companies or governments. This is not just an idea from a movie or a book anymore, but real life. As the idea of privacy goes away, technology gains more power and control over people which turns normal everyday activities into an opportunity for their data to be collected. The posthuman idea is also relevant as people are less defined by themselves, but by their digital footprint and online profiles. These surveillance systems only see people as data and digital points. Who Benefits, Who Is Harmed These surveillance technologies can and do improve security and its efficiency, but also bring about problems and concerns. It has the potential to benefit governments, companies, and civilians, but can also hurt civilians. The more data that is collected, the more control civilians lose. As their information is collected, stored, and shared, the less they can protect it. The chances of this data being leaked and exploited goes up, and the blame typically falls on the user (ISACA). Users are typically unaware of how much of their information is being collected. Therefore, the consequences of surveillance also harms civilians the most.

Conclusion

Digital surveillance is a part of everyday life, but still leaves questions. What or who controls the data collected about civilians? How much privacy do civilians have to sacrifice for convenience and safety? At what point is surveillance not protecting, but controlling? These issues show that society is already living out the ideas of cyberpunk where there is a thin line, if any, between privacy and public.

Sources Ahmed-Adnan-Sheikh, H.(2025, November 13) Facial Recognition and Privacy: Concerns and Solutions in the Age of AI. ISACA https://www.isaca.org/resources/news-and-trends/isaca-now-blog/2025/facial-recognition-and-privacy-concerns-and-solutions-in-the-age-of-ai Rogers, R.(2026, January 23) TikTok Is Now Collecting Even More Data About Its Users. Here Are the 3 Biggest Changes. Wired https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-new-privacy-policy/

Boundary Collapse Between Physical and Digital Worlds

A central theme in cyberpunk is the collapse of boundaries that once seemed stable, whether it’s the line between human and machine, or the borders that separate nations. As we talked about in class, cyberpunk worlds often expose how technology makes physical borders feel almost symbolic, while digital networks stretch across continents without friction. One boundary that has shifted dramatically in the past five years is the line between physical borders and digital borders. Today, work, crime, identity, and even citizenship can move freely online, regardless of geographic separation. In many ways, our world is inching closer to the same boundary collapse that cyberpunk fiction uses to critique power, globalization, and inequality.

Digital Labor and the Rise of Borderless Work

One clear example of this shift is how remote work has restructured global labor. Since the pandemic, companies routinely hire workers across countries without requiring physical relocation, turning the internet into a borderless workplace. Digital platforms now allow employees and contractors to live in one nation while working for another, blurring which country’s laws, wages, and protections apply. At the same time, governments are rethinking the meaning of citizenship. Estonia’s e-Residency program, which gives “digital citizenship” to people around the world, has expanded rapidly and now includes more than 110,000 global participants who run businesses within Estonia’s digital system without ever crossing a physical border (e-Residency, 2024). This is a real-world illustration of how digital systems can extend a nation’s influence beyond its physical territory, creating a new form of digital belonging that cyberpunk worlds often imagine.

Cybercrime, Cyberwarfare, and the Erasure of Geographic Limits

Another example comes from rising cybercrime and cyberwarfare, which operate completely independent of geography. Attacks on hospitals, banks, and infrastructure now routinely originate from actors across the globe. According to the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (2024), cross-border ransomware attacks have surged and increasingly target essential services, making national boundaries meaningless barriers in digital conflict. Countries can be harmed, threatened, or destabilized without a single physical soldier crossing a border. This collapse of distance aligns with what we have discussed in class: in postglobal and posthuman settings, the “enemy” or the “threat” is no longer tied to a physical space. Instead, power flows through digital systems that exceed human-scale borders.

Forces Driving the Shift: Technology, Economics, and Politics

Technology, economics, and politics all drive this collapse. Technologically, global networks allow information, money, and identity documents to move faster than states can regulate. Economically, remote work, global outsourcing, and digital entrepreneurship encourage multinational structures where labor and profit are distributed across continents. Politically, governments are racing to control cyber threats, regulate digital residency programs, and determine whose laws apply when conflict unfolds online (Anderson & Rainie, 2022). These forces echo the course themes in your cyberpunk class: technology destabilizing old systems, globalization altering power, and digital life challenging traditional categories of belonging, citizenship, and control.

Consequences and Inequities in a Digitally Borderless World

The implications of this shift are complicated. People with access to education, stable internet, and digital skills benefit the most—they can work globally, earn higher wages, and participate in digital economies that cross borders. Governments like Estonia also benefit by expanding their global influence without territorial expansion. But others are left behind. Workers in lower-income countries face wage competition from international labor markets, and communities without strong digital infrastructure lose opportunities entirely. Meanwhile, cyberattacks disproportionately harm hospitals, schools, and municipalities that lack cybersecurity funding, revealing uneven protection against digital threats. All these changes raise difficult questions: Who is responsible for security when attacks ignore geography? Should nations extend rights or protections to digital citizens? How do people maintain identity and belonging in a world where borders matter less online?

Cyberpunk Themes Reflected in Modern Global Realities

Like many cyberpunk narratives, our real world is reshaping the meaning of borders, power, and citizenship. The collapse between physical and digital borders reveals a future where geography still matters, but not nearly as much as the networks that connect us. These shifts challenge us to think critically about who gains control, who becomes vulnerable, and how we prepare for a world where digital boundaries increasingly define our lives more than the physical ones ever did.

References

Anderson, J., & Rainie, L. (2022, February 7). Changing economic life and work. Pew Research Center. https:// www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/02/07/5-changing-economic-life-and-work/

How many Estonian e-residents are there? Find e-Residency statistics. (2026, January 14). E-Residency. https://www.e-resident.gov.ee/dashboard/

Reports, E. (2025). ENISA THREAT LANDSCAPE. https://www.enisa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2025 10/ENISA%20Threat%20Landscape%202025%20Booklet.pdf

Dear Sir, Madam, or Algorithm,

I assume you are reading this. Not because I have done anything remarkable, but because in a world shaped by digital systems, observation has become routine rather than something exceptional.

Five years ago, I still thought of privacy as something I possessed, imperfectly, maybe, but meaningfully. I assumed that my movements, conversations, and online habits were largely my own unless I chose to share them. That assumption has quietly worn away. Not through a single policy change or technological breakthrough, but through countless small decisions like agreeing to terms of service, enabling location access, and storing personal information in the cloud.

There was no clear moment when the boundary disappeared. It simply stopped being visible.

What has shifted most in recent years is not the existence of surveillance, but its structure. Governments increasingly rely on private companies to collect and organize personal data and then access it through legal requests or market transactions. According to reporting by Proton, authorities worldwide, particularly in the United States of course, have dramatically increased their requests for user data from major technology firms, often with limited transparency and oversight (Koch, 2025). In this arrangement, corporate data collection and state surveillance are no longer meaningfully separate.

This shift reflects a broader normalization of data as a form of currency. Individuals exchange personal information for convenience, connectivity, and access to digital services. Companies monetize that data. Governments acquire it. Each step is justified as efficient, legal, or necessary. However, when taken together, they blur the line between consent and compliance.

The American Civil Liberties Union has documented how U.S. agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security have purchased location data from brokers rather than obtaining warrants, effectively bypassing constitutional safeguards (Venkatesh & Yu, 2026). While the proponents argue this practice operates within existing legal frameworks, it raises important questions about whether privacy protections remain meaningful when personal data is treated as a commodity.

Similar patterns appear beyond the United States. In Jordan, authorities reportedly used phone-extraction tools to access activists’ devices, targeting political dissent through technological means (Kirchgaessner, 2026). These cases highlight how surveillance technologies are easily transferred across borders and contexts, and how they often impact those already vulnerable to state power.

Even technical protections such as encryption, which are framed as firm barriers to access, prove now to be conditional. In early 2026, Microsoft confirmed that it provided encryption keys to U.S. authorities when legally compelled to do so, prompting concern among privacy advocates about precedent and potential misuse (O’Brien, 2026). Security, it seems, depends less on technological limits than on institutional trust.

To be clear, surveillance systems are frequently defended on grounds of public safety, efficiency, and national security. These concerns deserve serious consideration. Yet the collective effect of extensive data collection and expanded access warrants equally serious scrutiny. Who benefits from this visibility? Who bears the risks? And how should societies balance collective security with individual autonomy?

I do not offer simple answers. What I do offer is a sense that we have crossed a boundary without fully acknowledging it. Privacy has now been redefined and negotiated continuously in ways that are often invisible to the people most affected. It is well on its way to completely vanishing.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Warm regards,

One of your many data points

References: Kirchgaessner, S. (2026, January 22). Jordan used Israeli firm’s phone-cracking tool to surveil pro-Gaza activists, report finds. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/22/jordan-israeli-spyware-gaza-activists

Koch, R. (2025, February 27). Authorities worldwide can see more than ever, with Big Tech as their eyes. Proton. https://proton.me/blog/big-tech-data-requests-surge

O’Brien, T. (2026, January 24). Microsoft handed the government encryption keys for customer data. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/news/867244/microsoft-bitlocker-privacy-fbi

Venkatesh, A., & Yu, L. (2026, January 12). DHS is circumventing Constitution by buying data it would normally need a warrant to access. American Civil Liberties Union. https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/dhs-is-circumventing-constitution-by-buying-data-it-would-normally-need-a-warrant-to-access