It’s true that theft or physical attack can harm people’s happiness and make them feel unsafe, but so can many other things - such as oppressive surveillance and violent police officers. “Security” is the most common justification for new surveillance, but that is a term that should be viewed holistically. Side effects can include the loss of privacy, the possibility of abuse, chilling effects on creativity and freedom of expression, and disparate racial impacts that worsen existing social injustices - all of which could be produced by our example of face recognition - as well as more tangible things like pollution, noise, and economic harm. We might cut down on domestic violence and other crimes if we allowed the government to install cameras in everyone’s bedrooms, but we’re not willing to accept the side effects of such a step. Ideally, public debates around surveillance technologies would revolve not around particular “ movie plot” scenarios, but around a more rational, systematic, and broadly humanistic vision of technology and its role in our society.Įven if a technology is effective and important, what are its downsides? We might be able to prevent the smuggling of weapons from other parts of the world if we close our borders, but nobody is willing to accept the enormous consequences that measure would have. But that’s often a terrible way to make decisions that shape the fundamental contours of power in our society. We humans naturally think in stories, and a compelling anecdote, narrative, or mental image, particularly one that evokes fear, frequently defeats all rational argumentation. How should we process those claims? If the technology can do some real good, should we accept it? The authorities will also probably have specific stories they tell you - hypothetical or real - in which the technology saved the day. If we just record everything, surveillance boosters would have us believe, we can stop or solve crimes and life will be better. If police in your community are saying they want to install a new surveillance technology - face recognition, cameras, or license plate scanners, for example - they’re likely to be touted as the way to prevent all manners of evil, from terrorism to street crime to fraud to package theft.
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