‘Increased use of science and technology to fight crime is an infringement on personal privacy.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement?
Recent research has suggested that to apply the advance of sciences and technologies to struggle crime such as CCTV, DNA databases and biometrics is an infringement action (Security research, 2006). Especially, many people complain that they do not feel confident when working or walking under the surveillance of CCTV as their images may be used for negative purposes. In addition, it is said that DNA databases are their own property which shouldn’t be provided for the police. They believe that to investigate crime is the responsibility of the authority and police. However, it cannot be denied that many serious crimes have been solved thanks to the prominent emergence of technology and science such as the case of Sam Sheppard. After 12 years in the prison, this man was acquitted since the result of DNA test proved that he had been arrested by wrong conviction (US news, 1998). Obviously, these methods have been applied widely and become more and more popular in many metropolitan cities . By using high-technology, the police can confirm exactly the victim and even discover who the criminal is in a short time. As a result, the number of attacks has decreased moderately, raising feeling of security among citizens. Nevertheless, there is so much controversy arising from the use of these tools to fight against crime. For example, the police force and investigators may be too much dependent and even ignore the traditional methods. Police subjectivity, therefore, may arise during investigation process. Science and high technology may also be abused together with the public accusation of personal privacy invasion.
In this essay, I would like to focus on the positive influence of usingtechnology and science in the pursuit of crimes. I will then discuss some methods that help people use these in the most sensible and effective ways.
Thanks to the new technologies, we are leading a more secure and more comfortable life. Nowadays, almost every bank has applied alarm systems and CCTV in their offices. This equipment is connected with the local police office. Accordingly, the number of robberies has declined sharply. Moreover, it also plays an important role in investigation. A new weapon of UK police now is Facebook – a website which provides and shares information about crime and appealable information (Sky news, 2008). It is now the first force in the UK to use this website to fight against crimes. According to the Assistant Chief Constable Rob Taylor,‘ Facebook has 7 million users in UK, so we realised that this was an excellent way of spreading our messages to people on a more personal basis’ (Sky news, 2008). Obviously, technology has contributed many ways to help not only reduce the criminal rate but also discover the crime as soon as possible.
References
Anders Jacobi and Mikkel Holst, 2006, Interview Meeting on Security Technology and Privacy, The Danish Board of Technology, viewed 8 August 2008.
Sky news, 2008, Facebook is the police's new weapon.
US news, 1998, new DNA tests point to killer in Sheppard case.
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