Mobile technologies have been promoted so dramatically in the 21st century that safety is nowadays often regarded as a threat to privacy. This may certainly sound absurd in terms of confidentiality; nevertheless, government security nowadays often requires a particular level of access to personal data, which often includes phone call records and message transcriptions. I am convinced that, in particular conditions, such measures are inevitable and therefore justifiable.
The obvious reason for such a violation against the right to privacy to be tolerated is that the prevention of terrorism or other harmful internal political activity can only be performed when a state obtains a certain degree of control. Because negative intentions of potentially evil authorities are rarely uncovered publicly, shallow control over public life would be insufficient for such initiatives to be detected. As a result, multiple governments are presently running particular secret services, tracking communication of certain individuals in order to omit negative consequences of their potential activity. For instance, the United States has enacted several laws concerning national security after the terrorist act performed in September 2001 in New York City. These measures are supposed to prevent such circumstances from occurring again, despite causing a theoretical threat to the protection of personal information.
However, the unwanted leaks in personal data can cause multiple issues both for the country and for the individuals. Not only would the citizens be exposed to a constant feeling of being physically and mentally persecuted, but they also would be likely to face some actual dangers. Hence all of the data collected by state services will be stored on services, there will always remain a risk of hacker attacks, which, if succeded, may lead to catasrophical impact on public and individual safety.
To summarize, the invasion into citizens’ privacy is an unwanted sacrifice for many; yet, there are no decent alternatives present to maintain government security at the moment. Therefore, it is crucial to keep the balance between controlling internal situation of a country and invading private lives of its citizens.