Consequences of uses of computing

• Moral issues


  Those that concern an individual's sense of right and wrong
• Moral issues

  • Downloading and using paid software without purchasing a licence
  • Others don't feel that the practice is morally correct
• Moral values


  Can be influenced by people around them (friends, family, teachers)
• Ethical issues

  Relate to society's sense of what is right or wrong
• Ethical issues

  • Use and misuse of personal data
  • Society believes personal data should be stored securely and not used for anything other than the purpose for which it was collected
• Cultural issues

  Arise from differences in moral values between people in different geographical areas
• Cultural issues

  • In the UK, people are generally happy for photographs containing them to be taken in public and shared online
  • In other countries, this would not be seen as acceptable
• When creating a new computer system, computer scientists must consider where their system is going to be used and what people's attitudes towards it would be
• Legal issues

  Those that relate to the law
• Legal issues relating to computers and computer systems

  • The Computer Misuse Act 1990
  • The Data Protection Act 1998
  • The Freedom of Information Act 2000
  • The General Data Protection Regulation 2016
• Personal data

  Data which can be related to an identifiable living person
• Unauthorised access


  Where computer systems or data are used by people who are not the intended users
• Code of conduct

  A voluntary set of rules that define the way in which individuals and organisations will behave
• Facebook, Google and Twitter provide a platform for spreading false information.  

  • Agents with  links to the Russian set up millions of fake accounts and websites and purchased thousands of advertisements on Google to spread misinformation to people whose profiles suggest that they would responsive to fake news and views.  
  • The US election is 2017 and the UK Brexit referendum in 2016 were both targeted, potentially changing the outcomes of both.  
• Do algorithms always make ethical decisions? 

  • Algorithms are based on complex rules that make predicting or explaining the decision-making logic difficult.  
  • The ethics of an algorithm may be ethically questionable because of this complexity.  
  • Machine-learning algorithms, given new training data, can define or modify their decision-making.  
  • The human operator does not need to understand how or why the algorithm makes a certain decision.  
• Until the Computer Misuse Act 1990, there were no legal provisions in UK law governing the use and misuse of computer systems
• The use of computers has become so widespread that further laws such as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 have been enacted to take into account technological growth and the widespread use of encryption
• The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in EU law creates a European standard to protect individuals and regulates how companies and organisations may hold, collect, and use personal data
• The Data Protection Act 2018 is the UK's implementation of the GDPR
• Legislation exists around the use of copyrighted material through the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
• Copyright laws

  Help protect your creations while also enabling you to share them with others, e.g. you can apply a licence that enables collaboration but prevents misuse
• Computers are connected globally which makes them vulnerable to attack
• Legislation empowers law enforcement to persecute cybercriminals
• It is important to balance a person's privacy with their safety.
• The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union and the European Economic Area. It addresses the transfer of personal data outside the EU and EEA areas. The GDPR aims to give control to individuals over their personal data and simplify the regulatory environment for international business by unifying the regulation within the EU.
• In the UK, the GDPR is implemented through the Data Protection Act 2018. This act supplements the GDPR by providing further details on how the GDPR applies in the UK. It outlines specific provisions and derogations that apply to the UK's data protection regime. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is the UK's independent authority set up to uphold information rights and enforce GDPR compliance.
• GDPR principles:

  1. Lawful, fair, and transparent data processing.
  2. Limited data collection for specific purposes.
  3. Collect only necessary data.
  4. Maintain accurate and up-to-date data.
  5. Store data for only as long as needed.
  6. Process data securely and confidentially.
  7. Data controllers are accountable for GDPR compliance.
• Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)


  Provides the public with the right to access information held by public authorities
• Privacy policies outline how an organization collects, uses, stores, and protects personal data. They inform individuals about their rights regarding their data and provide transparency on how their information is handled. Privacy policies help establish trust between organizations and individuals by demonstrating a commitment to data protection and privacy compliance.
• Business and commerce have access to increasing amounts of data. Many people are concerned about how their activity is being monitored by companies and also governments. These ethical concerns relate to whether the benefits of monitoring people's activity or collecting and analysing people's personal data outweigh the drawbacks.
• Closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras are used to deter people from committing crimes and to provide law enforcement with evidence of criminal activity. CCTV was first used for this in 1968 in the city of Olean, NY, in the USA.
• However, your privacy is threatened by the use of CCTV. Whether it is right or wrong to threaten your privacy is an ethical issue.

  The case for the use of surveillance technology is often based on the 'nothing to hide' argument (i.e. "If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about").
• Sometimes, the way that data is represented can reveal more than a person originally intended. For example, image metadata often includes not only the time and date that a photograph was taken, but also the location of the shot. Criminals can exploit the knowledge of a person's location or other personal information, especially since oversharing personal information online has become more and more acceptable.
• Encryption is one tool that allows us to protect ourselves and our information from government surveillance. Of course, there is another side to encryption: encryption can also be used to hide criminal activity and prevent law enforcement from being able to carry out important investigations into serious crimes.
• It is often the case that technology can develop at a faster pace than the legislation can keep up with. Those that create and enforce laws have to respond to developments in technology, whilst also minimising the impact on individuals and wider society.

  Many new technologies (and new uses of existing technologies) are unregulated, with few legal provisions. This creates issues of liability (who is legally responsible) when things go wrong.
• The internet is a global network and as such poses many challenges to law enforcers, as laws can vary from country to country. Content that is deemed illegal in one country may not be illegal in the country where the website is hosted and it can be difficult to use local laws to challenge illegal file-sharing websites that operate from countries where copyright laws are not always enforced.
• Law enforcement agencies can try to track down criminals from data collected by internet service providers and mobile phone companies. Access to computer disk drives and mobile phone storage can provide evidence to enable prosecutions, but creating laws to allow law enforcement agencies (e.g. the police) to have this type of access requires balance with the rights to privacy of citizens.