Privacy in the 21st Century

New surveillance technology, such as automated license plate readers (ALPR), linked doorbell cameras, street cameras, etc., offers great benefits to society in identifying and tracking criminals – leading to a reduction in crime, helping locate missing persons, etc. This is an amazing use of technology to better society.

Except….

That tech can be used to track anyone, for any reason. If private businesses can place devices that identify people’s movements, that enables them, the government, or others to track our movements.

During the Super Bowl, Ring ran an ad about their linked cameras’ ability to locate lost pets. Initial thoughts were, how awesome? Which quickly gave way to dread of the enormous privacy implications. The backlash was so swift and so severe that Ring had to disable that feature.

There are many costs and benefits to this tech. Simply striking an extreme position on one side, while blinding ourselves to the other side, is folly – demanding nuance in implementing this tech. How can we, as a society, strike a reasonable balance between safety and privacy?