Emerging Technologies

Video: Do we live in a surveillance state?

Margo Seltzer
Professor, Harvard\'s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Harvard professor Margo Seltzer introduces us to a dystopian world where privacy is already dead: “Welcome to today,” she says, “We live in that future right now. We live in a surveillance state. Privacy as we knew about it is no longer feasible.”

Author: Margo Seltzer is the Herchel Smith Professor of Computer Science and a Harvard College Professor in the Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. 

Image: A surveillance monitoring expert watches a bank of screens. REUTERS/David Moir. 

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

Sign up for free

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Stay up to date:

The Digital Economy

Related topics:
Emerging Technologies
Innovation
Share:
The Big Picture
Explore and monitor how The Digital Economy is affecting economies, industries and global issues
World Economic Forum logo

Forum Stories newsletter

Bringing you weekly curated insights and analysis on the global issues that matter.

Subscribe today

More on Emerging Technologies
See all

In the age of agentic AI, brands need customer experiences for when the customer isn’t there

Benjamin Wiener

November 19, 2025

Data centres use vast amounts of water – here’s how we advance water circularity

About us

Engage with us

Quick links

Language editions

Privacy Policy & Terms of Service

Sitemap

© 2025 World Economic Forum