A panopticon is an institutional building design conceived by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century. The name comes from Greek, meaning "all-seeing."

The basic architectural concept involves a circular structure with cells arranged around a central watchtower. The key feature is that observers in the tower can see into every cell, but those in the cells cannot tell whether they're being watched at any given moment. All the inmates are visible, but the observer remains hidden.

Bentham originally designed this for prisons, believing it would be a more humane and efficient way to manage inmates. The idea was that if prisoners never knew when they were being observed, they would regulate their own behavior, assuming they might always be watched.

The concept has become much more influential in social theory than in actual architecture. The French philosopher Michel Foucault famously analyzed the panopticon as a metaphor for modern power and surveillance. He argued that the panopticon represents how modern societies control people—not through direct force, but through internalized self-discipline created by the possibility of being watched.

Today, people often invoke the panopticon when discussing surveillance technology, social media, workplace monitoring, or any system where the awareness of potential observation influences behavior. It's become a powerful concept for thinking about privacy, power, and social control in the digital age.