Crime and safety

Is technology the solution to crime?

All we know that technology is advancing increasingly and even though it has advantages for
us, it also has disadvantages. Imagine that your neighborhood which before was very
unsafe, now it is improving their safety with technology. All people that were committing
physical crime, now they are being arrested as a result of the technological advance that can
recognize with all cameras that were installed in the neighborhood. It sounds good, isn't it?
But now think of the sacrifice that all your neighbors and you did to get this security, do you
know what it was? To have all this security, you had to lose all your privacy in the
neighborhood, since all the police, your neighbors and you can see anything that someone
does in the neighborhood, in every corner (yes, your house too) and at any time. Would you
like anyone to have access to that?

One of the rights humans (Article 17) said that we have to have the right to privacy. It is
important because if we feel and are aware that we don't have our privacy, our natural
behavior would change. This wouldn’t allow us to fully develop our personality and we would
feel repressed in our own homes and spaces that we consider safe. Technological
advancement is supposed to help us, give us advantages and make some things easier for
us, not harm us and take away the feeling of freedom that makes us who we are.

In addition, technological advancement won't work better only for our sake. Imagine, if
access to our privacy is facilitated to have more control over crime, the police wouldn’t be
the only ones to have access to all that information. On the other hand, nothing assures us
that crime in general will decrease, since thieves would learn how to use the technology and
soon they will have the same access as the police, as a result, they would have an easier
opportunity to get away in different ways. This technological advance not only gives
advantages to us, also to those who like to commit crimes.

The bottom line is that it's possible to improve the safety in our neighborhood or in our city in
general and technology could help us in the process, but it is not necessary to lose our
privacy and sense of freedom because thieves will always find a way to get away with
different methods. If what we are looking for in the future is to improve security, we shouldn’t
sacrifice something as important as privacy. We shouldn't depend so much on technology, a
tool that in the end can turn out to be a double-edged sword for us.