1.6 Ethical, cultural and environmental issues Flashcards
What is a stakeholder?
- Anyone with an interest in, or who may be affected by a technology
- Someone/something involved directly or indirectly
What are ethical issues about?
What would be considered right and wrong by society
What are legal issues about?
What’s actually right and wrong in the eyes of the law
What are cultural issues about?
How groups of people with particular beliefs, practices or languages may be affected e.g. ethnic groups, religions, countries.
What are environmental issues about?
How we impact the natural world
Example of an ethical issue
The advancement of Artificial Intelligence putting at risk the jobs or people.
What is internet censorship?
- When someone tries to control what other people can access on the internet.
- Some countries governments use censorship to restrict access to certain information.
- e.g. the Chinese government blocking Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and censor any content critical of the government.
What is computer surveillance?
When someone monitors what other people are accessing on the internet.
What is cyberbullying?
When somebody uses social media to deliberately harm someone else.
What is trolling?
When somebody tries to cause public arguments with others online.
What is the digital divide?
How some people have greater access to technology than others.
Global divide - how the level of access to technology is different in different countries
What are causes of the digital divide?
- Some people don’t have enough money to buy new devices, which can be very expensive
- Urban areas are likely to have greater network coverage than rural areas
- Some people, eg the elderly, don’t know how to use the internet
What are the 6 principles of the Data Protection Act 2018?
- Data should be kept safe and secure
- Data must only be used in a fair, lawful and transparent way
- Data must only be used for the specified purpose
- Data should be adequate, relevant and not excessive for the specified use
- Data must be accurate and kept up to date
- Data should not be kept longer than is necessary
What is the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988?
- Protects intellectual property through copyright
- Patents cover new inventions
- Illegal to share copyrighted files or replicate without the copyright holder’s permission
What are offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990?
- Gaining unauthorised access to a private network or device
- Gaining unauthorised access to a network or device in order to commit a crime
- Unauthorised modification of computer material
What is open source software?
- Usually free
- Users can access and modify the source code
- Often developed collaboratively e.g. Linux
What is proprietary software?
- Usually paid for (can be expensive)
- Source code is closely guarded
- Proprietary software licences restrict modification and copying e.g. Microsoft Office
What are the advantages of open source software?
- Usually free
- Made for the greater good, not profit
- Users can adapt software to their needs
- Popular software is very reliable and secure (problems are quickly solved by the community)
Disadvantages of open source software?
- New releases are often buggy
- No warranties if something then goes wrong,
- No customer support provided (although community forum will often make up for this).
- More open to security threats
- No one is accountable for any problems
What are the advantages of proprietary software?
- Comes with warranties, documentation, and customer support.
- Should be well tested and reliable. Fixes and updates will come regularly.
- Usually cheaper for companies than developing their own custom-built software
- Usually very secure and free from bugs
What are the disadvantages of proprietary software?
- Can be expensive
- Software may not exactly fit a user’s needs, and they can’t modify it
- Software companies may not maintain older software after warranties expire - they’ll want people to buy their latest product.
