Former FIA Chief Warns Surveillance Technology Is Being Misused

A former director general of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has warned that surveillance technology is being misused, turning digital tools of convenience into instruments of control that threaten human autonomy and democratic values.

Delivering a lecture at Bahria University titled “The New Leviathan in Digital Disguise: Surveillance Capitalism, Its Mechanisms, Impacts, and the Imperative for Resistance,” Dr Sanaullah Abbasi, who also served as inspector general of police, said that “surveillance capitalism” has become a defining feature of the information age.

He explained that this system converts human experience into data for commercial gain, allowing corporations to predict and influence behavior.

“It is not the result of conspiracy but a historical shift that created a new logic of accumulation,” he said.

Dr Abbasi added that surveillance technology is being misused to harvest personal data, manipulate choices, and consolidate power on an unprecedented scale. He warned that this model undermines democracy, fuels inequality, and poses an existential threat to individual freedom.

He described surveillance capitalism as a mutation of traditional capitalism that treats human experience as raw material to be processed, owned, and sold for profit. The result, he noted, is widespread manipulation, addiction, algorithmic bias, and deepening social divides.

Dr Abbasi called for collective action to reclaim democratic authority over technology by enacting robust laws, modernizing antitrust principles, and developing alternatives that prioritize human well-being over profit.