How Does Cryptography Help or Hinder the Protection of Privacy & Public Safety?
Computer privacy and safety have been ensured via cryptography and other means for decades. A common example of cryptography at work is seeing only asterisks when you enter a password to keep the password invisible to anyone nearby.
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Benefits
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Protecting individuals' privacy is the key purpose of cryptography. It keeps your credit card information private from identity thieves, your children's records secret from predators, and protects us in more ways than we can count. Keeping our private lives private is important to individual safety.
Risks
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Keeping your personal information encrypted protects you from identity theft. Cryptography also protects the financial information of terrorists and the prison records of dangerous criminals. It is only a tool and will guard the secrets of criminals just as well as it guards the secrets of everyone else. Public safety is put at risk when the secrets of criminals are protected.
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Considerations
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Drawing the line between keeping the public safe and protecting the right to privacy of individuals is challenging. While one individual may value safety over privacy, another may value his privacy more. The USA Patriot Act of 2001, which eased limits on law enforcement's ability to gather intelligence, is an excellent example of protecting the public at the expense of privacy.
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