In this blog post, we examine whether national crime prevention systems can truly serve the public interest without infringing on individual human rights.
National Management Systems for Crime Prevention and Human Rights Violations
With the rapid advancement of science and technology, many countries have emphasized the need for systems to control and manage individuals for the purpose of crime prevention. In particular, with the advancement of data collection and AI technology in the 21st century, more efficient and systematic crime prevention has become possible. The introduction of such systems is driven by a sharp rise in crime rates and social unrest, and includes the goal of ensuring public safety through state management. However, as these systems are implemented, concerns regarding the infringement of individual privacy and human rights have also become a major issue across society.
A prime example is the United States, which, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, began indiscriminately collecting biometric data from all travelers under the pretext of protecting its citizens and preventing crime, while emphasizing vigilance against terrorism. For instance, systems that identify individuals through iris and fingerprint scans were introduced at airports and public facilities, and recently, such surveillance systems have been expanding to airports in various countries. The United Kingdom has also introduced X-ray airport security scanners (commonly known as “body scanners”) to enhance explosive detection capabilities and enable rapid screening, thereby facilitating surveillance for crime prevention. While these scanners allow for in-depth screening capable of revealing passengers’ underwear, they have sparked serious controversy over privacy violations.
Several developed nations, including the United States, Germany, and France, have implemented measures such as enhanced public disclosure of personal information for child sex offenders and the use of electronic ankle monitors to prevent child sexual abuse and recidivism among sex offenders, yielding positive results in reducing sex crime rates. Influenced by this, South Korea also made it mandatory for sex offenders to wear electronic ankle monitors starting in 2008. However, concerns have been raised that this system may infringe upon the human rights of offenders, and these controversies remain unresolved issues. Additionally, while a law proposing the collection and management of DNA information from violent offenders was introduced in 2006, enabling the collection of personal data for crime prevention, the issue of human rights violations arising from this practice continues to be debated.
Government systems designed to control individuals for the purpose of crime prevention are also frequently depicted in science fiction films. For example, the film *Minority Report* depicts a highly advanced future society where a crime prediction system called the “PreCrime System” is used to predict crimes in advance and prevent them before they occur. In the film, three precogs visualize crime scenes, and the PreCrime team arrests criminals based on this information. In this process, we see that the system’s database collects information on every individual, and a system using iris recognition technology to identify individuals has been implemented. Under the guise of crime prevention, this means that every move an individual makes is monitored by the system, resulting in a significant lack of privacy protection. Such a surveillance society appears to subordinate “individual human rights” to a “state management system,” raising concerns about the future that modern society may face.
Furthermore, the film warns of the risk that such systems could be misused as tools for the abuse of power. The scene where “Rama Vaji,” the administrator of the “Pre-Crime System” in the film, uses the system to label the protagonist as a criminal clearly illustrates that innocent citizens can become victims of power abuse if crime prevention systems are exploited by those in power. The fact that innocent individuals can easily be labeled as criminals if a national management system is controlled by a specific group is shocking, and it implies the need for vigilance regarding the potential for abuse of such systems.
Crime Prevention Systems and Human Rights Violations from a Philosophical Perspective
From a utilitarian, consequentialist perspective, one might conclude that the society depicted in *Minority Report*, where individual human rights are controlled by the state and the system, may be necessary for the maintenance and survival of the state. As seen in examples from developed countries, crime prevention systems have a positive impact in terms of reducing crime rates and facilitating management. However, this utilitarian approach, while prioritizing the greatest happiness for the greatest number, has the limitation that it may disregard individual human rights. Michael Sandel criticizes utilitarianism using the “lifeboat” analogy. If sacrificing one person to save three is the utilitarian way of thinking, this goes against human dignity, and human value cannot be the subject of such calculations. In other words, this suggests that individual human rights must be respected as an absolute value and cannot simply be sacrificed for the public good.
From Kant’s ethical perspective, we can also apply the principle that humans must be treated as ends in themselves, not merely as means. If a crime prevention system controls individuals through excessive data collection and surveillance, it treats them as mere objects of control, and the resulting human rights violations are unacceptable.
Conclusion
From a utilitarian perspective, state management systems for crime prevention demonstrate positive aspects such as reduced crime rates and ease of management; however, they may infringe upon the absolute value of individual human rights. Furthermore, if the system is misused, it can lead to abuse of power and pose a risk to innocent citizens. In this conflicting situation, the issue of balancing crime prevention and human rights violations cannot be resolved by simply prioritizing one value over another. To resolve this, communication and consensus between the state and individuals are essential.
To ensure that state management systems operate within limits that do not infringe upon human rights, the role of independent oversight bodies, such as the Public Data Management Commission, must be strengthened, and continuous feedback and adjustments are necessary to ensure that the collection of personal information and surveillance occur within just and lawful boundaries. Based on the premise that individual human rights are absolutely guaranteed, a process is needed in which the state and individuals engage in constant communication to ensure the transparency and rationality of the system.
Therefore, the state and individuals must work together to ensure that current and future state-managed crime prevention systems can fully perform their crime prevention functions while safeguarding human rights.
