1.6 Ethical, Legal, Cultural & Environmental Issues

Question 1

What are ethical issues ?

Answer 1

• Ensuring public safety
• Security of data

Question 2

What are legal issues ?

Answer 2

• allowing someone to illegally share personal data
• helping to steal financial information
• helping to illegally copy and distribute media
• extorting information or blackmailing someone

Question 3

What are the laws protecting people and their data in the uk ?

Answer 3

• The Data Protection Act
• The Computer Misuse Act
• The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
• Creative Commons Licensing

Question 4

What are cultural issues ?

Answer 4

• the digital divide
• changing nature of employment

Question 5

What is the digital divide ?

Answer 5

division that exists between those people who can use technology and can’t.

Question 6

What are environmental issues ?

Answer 6

the manufacturing and use of computers has had a negative impact on the environment.

Question 7

What is the Data Protection Act ?

Answer 7

Legislation passed by parliament that governs the protection of personal data in the UK.

Question 8

What is the Computer Misuse Act ?

Answer 8

Defines and criminalises a number of offences involving the use of a computer

Question 9

What are the three parts of the Computer Misuse Act ?

Answer 9

• Illegal to access data unless without permission
• Illegal to access data to use for further crime
  -Illegal to change any data without permission

Question 10

What is The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act ?

Answer 10

gives the creator of published material the control over the way it is used.

Question 11

What is copyright ?

Answer 11

A set of rights that prevents people copying and distributing a piece of work without the copyright holder’s permission.

Question 12

What is open source software ?

Answer 12

A model for creating technology that promotes free access to its design and makes it free to share.

Question 13

What is proprietary software ?

Answer 13

Software owned by a company

Question 14

What are the properties of open source software ?

Answer 14

Pros:
- Costs nothing
- Source code available
- Can have many authors
- Derivative can be made freely available

Cons:
- No guarantee to be bug - free
- Support might not be readily available

Question 15

What are the properties of proprietary software ?

Answer 15

Pros:
- Should be free of bugs
- Patches and Feature Updates
- Organisation support
- Widespread support

Cons:
- Cost
- Software can’t be adapted
- Limited to a single computer or network