- With the excuse of facilitating travel, digital systems are being imposed
- Tourists are subjected under the excuse of security to invasive checks and tracking
- The goal is control and oppression, and no one can rest a single second from the system
While institutions are increasingly interconnected all to digital systems, they necessarily become the center of social organization in modern life, under the excuse of comfort and efficiency.
These same systems, however, are being managed as tools of oppression and surveillance, in many areas, but surprisingly it is also within tourism.
As nations seek to revive their economies through tourism, they are imposing technological frameworks on the basis of "facilitating" travel.
This can be nothing but a perverse mockery since in reality, these digital systems hinder everything and serve to track, monitor and ultimately control the movement, consumption and freedoms of people.
The "Know Your Customer" policy
In Thailand recently, among so many policies of digital oppression, they have implemented a DigiPay payment system, to access and use this tool travelers are subjected to an extensive process of Know Your Customer (KYC) that involves checking passports and rigorous compliance with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) protocols.
Although these measures are presented to prevent financial crimes such as money laundering and fraud, few people are able to commit such crimes.
In reality these digital measures are for continuous tracking in the growing trend of erosion of personal privacy due to the control and extralimitation of public and private institutions.
The identity verification process is invasive
What should be simple transactions become obstacles and sources of stress. Tourists are now required to upload official documents, undergo facial recognition checks and provide personal data, all of which are stored and processed within digital systems that could be vulnerable, misused, and uncontrollable.
This level of scrutiny transforms the act of spending money into a surveillance system - one where every financial transaction, every movement and every pattern of consumption is potentially tracked and analyzed.
More than a simple drawback, these systems impose a form of control over travelers, subtly dictating where they can go, what they can do and how freely they can move within tourist areas. For example, cash withdrawals - once a simple and anonymous act - are now virtually non-existent.
In essence, the system discourages or openly prohibits cash transactions, pushing tourists into a digital ecosystem that leaves a detailed trail of their financial footprints.
Wherever you go you will be under surveillance
This digital dependency not only limits privacy, but also makes it increasingly difficult for travellers to operate outside the surveillance network, effectively limiting their freedom to choose alternative means of payment or withdraw cash.
Moreover, the introduction of these digital systems in tourist areas is often accompanied by restrictions on mobility. This situation is becoming common all over the world, even public areas are being saturated with surveillance cameras
Governments and companies, armed with large amounts of data, can impose restrictions on movement, whether through geofinancing, access controls or targeted supervision, effectively limiting the spontaneity and freedom that define travel escency.
A journey becomes one more tool of the digital oppression
Tourists become subjects of a controlled environment, constantly monitored, their behaviors and options molded by the invisible hand of digital surveillance.
Turning a sightseeing tour into a torture device, rather than a moment of distraction and relief, the oppressive institutions want to make sure that no one has a breath for a single moment of this stupid, enslaving, and twisted system
This scenario is especially dangerous because it normalizes a system where privacy is sacrificed at the altar of a supposed security and efficiency. People are trapped between security measures justified under any euphemism to impose invasive control mechanisms.
The same tools designed to protect them can, paradoxically, become instruments of domination, removing their autonomy and turning them into data points within a vast surveillance apparatus.
An era of control over tourist areas
