1.5 Legal, moral, cultural and ethical issues

    Cards (6)

    • “Technology is changing too quickly for the law to keep up.”
      Explain which laws regulate the use of technology and how advancements in technology have made the laws difficult to enforce/implement.
      • Data Protection Act regulates how personal data is stored.
      • The Computer Misuse Act regulates unauthorised access.
      • Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act regulates how government agencies can use IT for surveillance
      • Digital watermarking can be used to track piracy.
      • End to end encryption makes government monitoring of communications trickier
    • Discuss the positive and negative impacts computers are having on the environment
      • Digital devices have short life spans and are quickly disposed of they often end up in landfill.
      • People have many digital devices. These all need powering/charging.
      • Which means an increase in fossil fuel being burned.
      • Computers have allowed people to work from home/ communicate from afar . This means they don’t have to commute/travel, reducing traffic and pollution.
      • Computers have encouraged a paperless approach. This has the potential to reduce the use of paper and as such destruction of trees.
    • “When it comes to government electronic surveillance, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” To what extent the UK government is able to monitor electronic communications of its citizens
      • Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) gives authorities the power to compel disclosure of encryption keys
      • Legislation (RIPA) already ensures that communications can be monitored if there is just cause
      • Routine monitoring runs the risk of false-positives However, will reduce risk of illegal activities being co-ordinated (e.g. terrorism, drug trafficking)
    • “The Computer Misuse Act means that computer users are criminalised for simply trying to learn how systems work.” Discuss whether or not you agree with this statement.
      • CMA is a legislation aimed at criminalising unauthorised access to a computer system, Unauthorised access with intent to commit further offences and Unauthorised modification of computer material
      • Computer users who investigate how systems work require authorisation in order to not break the Act.
      • Material available online that explain how systems work and teach without the need to investigate using unauthorised access.
    • The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 applies to all videos that are streamed.
      Explain how this act applies to the videos
      • Copyright assigned to owner of video automatically on creation
      • Makes it illegal to copy/distribute videos as your own/without permission
      • Copyright holder can ask for their work to be removed from the streaming platform
      • Membership/licence gives subscribers the agreement to view videos
      • Which may restrict their use (e.g. to whom it is shown or geographical location from which it is accessed).
    • Discuss the extent to which you think computer systems will inherit the biases and discrimination of their programmers as the use of AI increases
      • AI follows programming so if a program contains biases then so will the AI outcomes.
      • Machine learning bias depends on data given. Larger data sets are generally more inclusive/less biased but must be aware of data that is itself biased.
      • If not thoroughly considered then biases will certainly be inherited.
      • Datasets for machine learning need to be large enough to be representative but not so large that data is not able to be checked.