Vincenzo Pavone and Sara Degli Esposti (2012), 'Public Assessment of New Surveillance-Oriented Security Technologies: Beyond the Trade-Off between Privacy and Security', Public Understanding of Science, 21, pp. 556-72.

Tn general, participants agreed that additional security, related to some aspects of ordinary life, was necessary. Yet, some participants questioned the appropriateness of using new SOSTs to address security problems, whilst others suggested restricting the adoption of new SOSTs only to specific crimes, in specific contexts and always under specific legal and institutional guarantees. Their main concern was to avoid political abuses and a deterioration of the democratic framework of law and rights. Other participants acknowledged that SOSTs may be useful against terrorism, but expressed concern that an over-emphasis on terrorism may come at the expense of other security threats that they perceive as more imminent and familiar.