Digitalization and the Redistribution of Security Responsibility: Beyond the State-Centric Security Model

Abstract

This is a conceptual and theory-building paper. It examines how digitalization has redistributed responsibility for personal security among governments, private companies, and individuals. The central research question is how digitalization redistributes responsibility for individual security among these three actors. The paper is theory-building, so it does not report original empirical research, a systematic review, or a formal comparative case study. Instead, it develops an integrated conceptual framework by combining securitization theory with human security, drawing on institutional reports, legal and regulatory documents, and academic literature on digital governance, privacy, and surveillance published up to early 2026. The paper argues that what appears to be a shift from state security to individual security is better understood as a redistribution of responsibility, in which institutions retain formal authority while individuals absorb a growing share of practical risk, a process this paper describes as responsibilization rather than a genuine transfer of security agency. The case-selection rationale for Cambridge Analytica is that it is well documented and concretely shows this redistribution at the levels of platform design, corporate decision-making, and delayed regulatory response. The paper's main limitation is that its source selection was not systematic and its argument rests on a single illustrative case rather than comparative or empirical evidence, so its propositions are offered as a basis for future testing rather than as established findings. The paper concludes that treating individuals as the primary managers of their own digital security risks reinforcing existing inequalities in resources and capacity, and calls for governance approaches that keep institutional and corporate accountability central even as individual exposure grows.