Panopticon

English philosopher Jeremy Bentham designed the Panopticon in 1791 as an institutional building — originally a prison — where a single watchman could observe all inmates from a central tower without them knowing whether they were being watched. French philosopher Michel Foucault later revived and reinterpreted the concept in his influential 1975 book Discipline and Punish, using it as a metaphor for the pervasive, invisible mechanisms of power and surveillance in modern societies.