Pierre-Antoine Chardel, Armen Khatchatourov. Identity, difference and the right to secrecy in the information age. Rue Descartes, 2020, Politique(s) du secret, 98, pp.103-117. ⟨10.3917/rdes.098.0103⟩.

The purpose of this article is, first of all, to offer some lines of thought on identity as it has been extensively redefined in the information age, approaching it through the questions that it asks us concerning that part of secrecy that feeds the processes of subjectivation. This takes place in a hypermodern period when the possibilities of intervening in the handling of our personal data are limited: the plethora of information that is gathered makes it impractical to obtain the user’s consent and control each time, if only because of the toll that would take on the mind. Moreover, the changes in data collection techniques, as demonstrated by the advent of the “internet of things,” has led to a profusion of sensors that collect data without the user’s knowledge, e.g. video surveillance combined with facial recognition. With these machinic assemblages, the visible is reduced to what can be captured as data, to what amounts to the immediate availability of beings, as if one could uncover their most intimate secrets. But beyond the constraints generated by electronic architectures, the possibilities of glimpsing new domains of permanent self-reinvention remain completely open and enable the creation of the conditions for the emergence of a dynamic, more inventive relationship to the secret.