Security with less freedom or freedom with less security. Reconciling these two rights has become one of the main challenges for today's democratic societies. Where is the balance between security and freedom?
"Everyone has the right to liberty and security. No one may be deprived of his liberty except in accordance with the provisions of this article and in the cases and in the manner provided by law". This is the content of Article 17.1 of the Spanish Constitutionwhich grants freedom and security the status of fundamental rights. fundamental rights. Also the Universal Declaration of Human Rights gives them equal importance, since, according to Article 3, "everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person".
Despite being two fundamental rights that must be protected equally, the freedom/security binomial is usually posed as a disjunction, i.e., when you promote one, you have to sacrifice, to a greater or lesser extent, the other.that is to say, when you promote one, you have to sacrifice, to a greater or lesser extent, the other.
The dilemma between security and freedom in modern society
Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the fight against terrorism has been the main reason that has led many Western countries to promote measures that have restricted certain freedoms. For example, in the United States, in the aftermath of 9/11, the Patriot Acta law that, in a partial form, has lasted until 2020, and which was criticized for allowing the indefinite detention of immigrants or the tracking of calls, e-mails and financial movements by the FBI without the need to obtain a court order.
But it is not only terrorism that strains the balance between security and freedom. problem of insecurity that mark the daily life of many municipalities. In fact, 2023 was the worst year of the last decade in Catalonia with 608,449 crimes (more than 1,600 per day).. This has led many cities to start betting on or further strengthen security technologies in the streets, as is the case of video surveillance systems.
On the other hand, facial recognition technologies are subject to stricter regulation.. The EU AI Act (EU AI Act), which binds all Catalan municipalities, prohibits biometric categorization systems based on sensitive data and the indiscriminate capture of facial images from the internet or surveillance camera recordings to create facial recognition databases, in addition to the recognition of emotions in workplaces and schools, citizen scoring systems or predictive policing when this is based solely on a person's profile or the evaluation of their characteristics.
Despite this, citizens in some of Spain's most populated cities, when asked if they would accept facial recognition systems in their municipalities in exchange for a reduction in the number of crimes, overwhelmingly support this type of technology: this is the case of Zaragoza (73,5%), Madrid (72,6%), Barcelona (70,9%) y Bilbao (66.8%), according to the Smart City Index 2024 of the Swiss business school IMD Business School.
"We do not have to lose rights and freedoms to be safe, but we have to be safe to be able to exercise our rights and freedoms," he says. Rafael MartínezD. in Law from the University of Zaragoza, in an article for the Revista Catalana de Dret Públic.. He adds that "absolute security is unattainable" and that cutting fundamental rights to achieve security means turning the end (rights) into means and the means (security) into the ultimate goal.
This is the line expressed by Matteo Renzi, former Italian Prime Minister, during a session in the European Parliament in 2015 after the attack in Paris against the Charlie Hebdo magazine. "Freedom is a precondition for security. The citizen security is not possible without freedom in Europe, he said in a speech closing the Italian rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union..
"The way in which these two goods [security and freedom] are balanced will have a lot to do with the conception we have of security and the means we understand we have to use to guarantee it," says Marta Galceran. Marta Galceran, senior researcher at CIDOB's Global Cities Program, in a 2018 article. "The desire to live safely is not new. In fact, the concern to strike a balance between security and liberty is a central element of 17th century social contract theories, where we find the origin and purpose of both the state and human rights themselves.where we find the origin and purpose of both the state and human rights themselves," he adds.
How to find the balance between security and freedom in the use of citizen security technologies?
In the adoption of citizen security technologies, it is mandatory to respect the regulatory framework, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Organic Law 3/2018 on the protection of personal data and the guarantee of digital rights, the Organic Law 4/1997 on the use of video cameras by the Security Forces and Corps in public places or the Law 19/2013 on transparency, access to public information and good governance.
These legislations impose, for example, that municipalities have to inform citizens about the existence of cameras and their purpose with visible signs, in addition to providing information on the cost and suppliers of these systems, or that recordings cannot be kept for more than thirty days except in specific investigations. Therefore, they are a guarantee of respect for rights such as privacy, moral integrity, non-discrimination or the right to security itself.
In short, the balance between security and freedom requires constant dialogue between administrations, companies and citizens, as it is not only a legal or technological challenge, but a debate on the values that define our society. Both security and freedom are a prerequisite for collective well-being..
At Alphanet we are a provider of security technologies approved as a private security company by the Departament d'Interior de la Generalitat de Catalunya. In addition, we follow the interoperability rules and principles set by the National Interoperability Scheme (ENI) to adjust our protocols, products, procedures and systems to the standards of the Public Administration.
