Cyber policy development is an essential part of regulating and maintaining the security of digital technologies. As they develop, more safeguards and policies need to be implemented to ensure that people are not exploited by the use of those technologies. Take for example, artificial intelligence, when fully refined and developed, they may potentially be one of the best digital tools humanity will have at its disposal. However, as artificial intelligence becomes more and more mainstream, the need to regulate their usage to ensure people don’t attempt to use one for nefarious or devious purposes. Because one day, a person with the immorality and the knowhow may very well try and create an artificial intelligence that commits some sort of criminal act; like a self-driving car prioritizing the life of one person over another based on a social credit system implemented by the car company.

Relying on predictive analytics to regulate crimes can also be a slippery slope. Many crimes that are committed normally aren’t cut and dry, where the answer is black and white; rather crimes tend to have a weird gray area in which the way forward on how to proceed or prosecute becomes unclear. That’s where human supervision comes in. Humans are needed to monitor situations on a case-by-case basis at times in effort to ensure that the system is working in an ethically just manner. In the case of parole for criminals who have done time and reformed, are they confined to a life behind bars for the duration of their sentence? Humans have the ability to assess and commute a sentence should the proper government authority see fit to release them.

Cyber policy needs to be regulated on the basis of a good moral and ethical basis; and on the foundation that they work to prevent innocent people from being affected negatively by those who would exploit the system.