THE TWO FACE OF JANUS: TECHNOLOGY, INNOVATION AND THE IMPERATIVE OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE IN PUBLIC SECURITY PROJECTS

Abstract

This scientific-legal article conducts an in-depth, multifaceted analysis of the complex and often antagonistic intersections between the vertiginous adoption of emerging technologies in public security projects and the imperative safeguarding of the fundamental rights and guarantees framework consolidated in the Brazilian legal system. Faced with the growing and frequently uncritical implementation of high-tech tools—such as Artificial Intelligence systems for biometric facial recognition and predictive policing, Big Data analytics, unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), and body-worn cameras (bodycams)—an acute dialectical tension emerges. On one hand, the promise of an unprecedented optimization of state efficiency in crime prevention, investigation, and repression; on the other, the concrete threat of erosion of basic constitutional guarantees, such as privacy, intimacy, the presumption of innocence,
equality, and due process. The research, qualitative in nature and developed through a hypothetical-deductive method based on an exhaustive bibliographic and documentary review, investigates the constitutional and legal foundations and limits that guide the use of these technologies. It delves into the intricate legal implications arising therefrom, with a special focus on the controversial applicability of the General Data Protection Law (LGPD) to the sector, the epistemological and procedural challenges of algorithmic evidence, and the complex attribution of liability for damages caused by autonomous systems. Furthermore, the work densely explores the ethical, sociological, and political aspects, notably the systemic risk of discriminatory algorithmic biases that perpetuate and obscure structural racism, and the progressive establishment of a panoptic control society. Finally, the article is not limited to diagnosis but advances into the propositional field, analyzing and advocating for the construction of technological governance models as the only path to harmonize the security-liberty binomial. It is argued that the legitimacy of such innovations depends on the establishment of a robust regulatory ecosystem, founded on the pillars of radical transparency, effective accountability, algorithmic fairness, and democratic social control.