The
technology brought up in The Circle
has the power to do so much good in the world, but also so much evil. Not only
do the SeeChange cameras make it easier to catch crime, but also new ideas are
being presented all the time to stop all crime and make the world a safer
place. Unfortunately each development that is meant to protect people also
strips away their freedoms, and could potentially cause more problems than it
solves.
SeeChange: The First Step
The
SeeChange cameras (described in an earlier post) are a great way to limit
crime. They can be placed in any public area and will see and hear everything
in that area, while being almost undetectable. This advancement makes it very
easy to identify and track down the culprits of crimes, and eventually starts
to act as a deterrent for future crimes.
These
cameras also make it very easy for anyone to track the movements of any person.
That not only is creepy and a violation of privacy, but also could lead to different
types of crimes than the ones it may be stopping.
TruYouth: Child Tracking
I’m
sure many parents would say that they would love to know where their kids are
at all times. With TruYouth, that is finally possible.
TruYouth is a program that imbeds a
microchip into a child’s bone which tracks where that child is at all times.
This technology was introduced to stop kidnappings. If a child can always be
tracked, they cannot be taken from their parents and locked up and tortured for
years on end. Even if a child is taken, their parent can see where they are and
law enforcement can arrive on scene, hopefully before too much damage is done.
This program, while it was designed
with a positive purpose in mind, is not just dangerous, but a huge violation of
trust. Part of growing up should be getting to make mistakes, try new things,
and yes, occasionally, break some rules without your parents knowing. This
technology would make it impossible for children to do anything without their
parents consent. This may seem like a good thing to some, but this technology
would take away a lot of what it means to be a child, and that is something
that really should be protected.
The possibilities for harm if the
technology got into the wrong hands are even more sinister. The technology
could easily be used by a government body to track the exact movements of all
their citizens, giving them immense and unregulated power over them. This
technology could also be used by pedophiles and other child obsessed people to
find the exact whereabouts of children.
Can Freedom and Safety Exist Together?
Although
safety could be considered a freedom, it dramatically inhibits another
important freedom: freedom of privacy. Both of these examples presented in the
story could be very important in stopping crime, but yet both have tremendous
drawbacks.
So,
can freedom and safety exist together? I think so. But the right balance has to
be reached. The real question is: How much privacy are we willing to give up in
order to feel safe?
No comments:
Post a Comment