Surveillance and moral dilemmas

Supervisor: Lisa (geierhaa@cs.uni-bonn.de)

Surveillance and privacy are a recurring topic in political discourse, and can often be divisive. Arguments for stronger surveillance, especially in the digital realm, typically include the prosecution or prevention of serious crime. This leads to a moral dilemma - surveillance and little to no privacy at one end of the spectrum, and room for criminal activity at the other.

How much privacy are we willing to sacrifice if that means that tax evasion would be prosecuted? Or that a terrorist attack could be prevented? And how much surveillance are we willing to tolerate if that means that child abuse could be discovered, or even prevented?

Goal:

Literary research into the topic of moral dilemmas/ trolley problems and other ethical thought experiments and how they might be applied to the question of privacy vs criminal prosecution.