Abstract
In their efforts to enhance the safety and security of citizens, governments and law enforcement agencies look to scientists and engineers to produce modern methods for preventing, detecting, and prosecuting criminal activities. Whole body scanners, lie detection technologies, biometrics, etc., are all being developed for incorporation into the criminal justice apparatus.1 Yet despite their purported security benefits these technologies often evoke social resistance. Concerns over privacy, ethics, and function-creep appear repeatedly in analyses of these technologies. It is argued here that scientists and engineers continue to pay insufficient attention to this resistance; acknowledging the presence of these social concerns yet failing to meaningfully address them. In so doing they place at risk the very technologies and techniques they are seeking to develop, for socially controversial security technologies face restrictions and in some cases outright banning. By identifying sources of potential social resistance early in the research and design process, scientists can both engage with the public in meaningful debate and modify their security technologies before deployment so as to minimize social resistance and enhance uptake.
Highlights
Social constructionism is a sociological theory of knowledge which holds that our knowledge of the world is not derived from observing nature, rather that it is constructed through the social interactions and processes of people (Burr, 2003)
By accepting that judgments over acceptability of a technology differ between social groups and that rejection of a technology can lead to its permanent inferiority through neglect (MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1999), the consideration of wider social and ethical issues upstream in the design process to anticipate and mitigate negative social reactions becomes both a valid and logical response
The list of technologies developed which have been banned or their use restricted in various societies, but because the developers did not seek to anticipate and mitigate social resistance through upstream design modifications is long and growing
Summary
Reviewed by: Aaron Winter, University of Abertay, UK Nicola Lettieri, ISFOL, Italy In their efforts to enhance the safety and security of citizens, governments and law enforcement agencies look to scientists and engineers to produce modern methods for preventing, detecting, and prosecuting criminal activities. It is argued here that scientists and engineers continue to pay insufficient attention to this resistance; acknowledging the presence of these social concerns yet failing to meaningfully address them. In so doing they place at risk the very technologies and techniques they are seeking to develop, for socially controversial security technologies face restrictions and in some cases outright banning. By identifying sources of potential social resistance early in the research and design process, scientists can both engage with the public in meaningful debate and modify their security technologies before deployment so as to minimize social resistance and enhance uptake
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