Why Human Informants Still Matter in the Age of AI Surveillance

The most frightening thing about surveillance is not always the camera on the wall or the intelligence officer behind a desk. Sometimes it is the colleague who repeats your private joke, the neighbour who watches who visits your home, or the friend who suddenly asks too many careful questions.

Recent research on Iran has examined the everyday culture of informing, known in Persian as Zirabzani or Mokhberi. However, this phenomenon is not uniquely Iranian. Many political systems, especially authoritarian ones, survive not only by watching citizens from above but also by encouraging citizens to watch one another.

Although every society has its own language for those who report on others, the phenomenon is remarkably familiar across cultures. In Iran, they are known as Zirabzan. Across much of the Arab world, the term Mukhbir immediately evokes the image of a state informant. In Türkiye, people speak of an İspiyoncu, while in Russia the deeply pejorative Stukach recalls both Soviet-era denunciations and contemporary political informing. In China, gàomìzhě (告密者) and gàomì (告密) refer to secret informers and the act of informing itself, terms shaped by decades of political campaigns and continuing systems of social monitoring. The names differ, but they all point to the same underlying social reality: ordinary citizens who become intermediaries between society and the state.

This is the part of surveillance we often miss. Public debate is now dominated by artificial intelligence, facial recognition and digital monitoring. These technologies matter. But they work best when they are combined with something older and more intimate: fear inside society itself.

Informant cultures emerge when people begin to believe that ordinary relationships are politically risky. A conversation at work, a comment in class, a joke at dinner, or a post on social media can become evidence. Once this happens, people do not simply fear the state. They begin to fear each other.

In Iran, this system operates through formal and informal channels. Security bodies, workplace monitoring offices, ideological institutions, universities and local networks can all become part of the machinery of reporting. Some people are pressured to cooperate. Some are offered incentives. Some inform because of ideology, jealousy, rivalry, fear or the hope of protection. Others become involved reluctantly, telling themselves they have no choice.

This is what makes informant culture so powerful. It does not rely only on committed believers. It also feeds on ordinary vulnerabilities: job insecurity, family pressure, ambition, resentment, fear of exclusion and the need to survive.

Informant cultures are not unique to Iran. East Germany’s Stasi built one of the twentieth century’s most extensive civilian informant networks, while in the Soviet Union denunciation became intertwined with fear, loyalty and survival. Today, similar dynamics persist in different forms. In China, digital surveillance is reinforced by neighborhood committees, workplace reporting and community monitoring. Across parts of the Arab world, the figure of the Mukhbir remains closely associated with state security, while in Türkiye, political denunciations have periodically shaped academic, professional and bureaucratic life. Although these systems differ in ideology, scale and intensity, they share a common logic: authoritarian power becomes far more effective when citizens become participants in surveillance rather than simply its subjects.

Artificial intelligence and digital surveillance have made these systems more sophisticated, but they have not replaced their human infrastructures. Instead, they have amplified them. In contemporary China, neighbourhood committees, workplace reporting mechanisms and digital social monitoring increasingly reinforce one another, while in Russia, online denunciations have accompanied renewed wartime censorship and political repression. Technology may identify patterns, but it is still people who interpret information, report suspicious behaviour and enforce social norms. The future of authoritarian surveillance therefore lies not simply in smarter technology, but in the fusion of digital monitoring with everyday human relationships.

This suggests that the future of authoritarian intelligence is unlikely to be purely algorithmic. Rather, it lies in combining artificial intelligence with decentralised human reporting, allowing digital systems and citizen informants to reinforce one another.

Even in democratic societies, softer forms of everyday reporting exist. Whistleblowing, safeguarding, workplace complaints and reporting suspicious behaviour can serve legitimate purposes. They are not the same as authoritarian informant systems. But the comparison matters because it shows that reporting is not automatically good or bad. Its meaning depends on power, law, accountability and fear. In a democracy, reporting should protect people from abuse. In an authoritarian context, it often protects the state from people.

The human cost is difficult to measure. Informant culture damages more than political freedom. It changes how people speak, joke, teach, work, love and disagree. It creates silence before censorship is even needed. People learn to avoid certain names, certain topics, certain friendships. They begin to edit themselves not only in public but also in private.

Over time, this produces more than fear. It changes psychology. When people repeatedly experience surveillance, punishment or uncertainty, they may begin to believe that speaking out is pointless or dangerous. Psychologists describe this as learned helplessness. Silence then becomes more than a tactic. It becomes a habit. This is why authoritarianism can be so durable. It does not always need to arrest everyone. It only needs to make people believe that anyone might report them.

For intelligence and security professionals, informant culture should not be understood simply as a domestic policing tool. It constitutes part of the human terrain upon which authoritarian resilience is built. Regimes that successfully institutionalise citizen reporting acquire a distributed intelligence network that extends far beyond formal security agencies. This makes opposition movements more fragmented, increases uncertainty and significantly raises the costs of collective mobilization.

Understanding how informant cultures emerge has implications that extend far beyond authoritarian regimes. Policymakers often focus on surveillance technologies, sanctions or elite politics when assessing authoritarian resilience. Yet they frequently underestimate the social infrastructure that allows regimes to gather intelligence, discourage dissent and sustain political control from below.

Artificial intelligence may expand the state’s capacity to collect information. But authoritarian resilience still depends on something no algorithm can manufacture on its own: the willingness—or fear—of ordinary people to watch one another. The future of authoritarian surveillance will therefore be decided not only by smarter machines, but by the social relationships they reshape.