I think there is a debate here that we need to have, as a society.

But I think that broader society are not going to understand the technical issues, and are going to be swayed by overly-emotional appeals to "think of the children" and similar.

Therefore I think that we, as engineers - the people who will be asked to implement the results of any such debate, need to have this debate ourselves so we can take responsibility for our actions.

I can see both sides of this debate.

There is a legitimate need in society to gather evidence to discover the guilt or innocence of accused criminals. We cannot have a system of justice that assumes innocence until proven guilty but provides no method for gathering incriminating evidence.

There is also a legitimate basic human right to privacy. We must not be subject to constant surveillance by the state.

We have to find a middle path between the two extremes.