Ethical, Privacy, Cultural and Environmental Flashcards
What are ethics?
Ethics consists of the standards of behaviour that are acceptable within our society. They are the moral principles and values that make society operate effectively and justly.
What can unethical behaviour lead to?
Unethical behaviour undermines trust and can lead to a loss of respect and goodwill. People often feel anger and hostility towards a person/organisation that has operated unethically.
What can the lack of centralised authority lead to
No one owns the internet. No one manages it. No one is responsible for it. This is both the greatest benefit and greatest drawback of the Internet.
The lack of a centralised authority makes it easy for people to be anonymous and bully or troll others. Upsetting, gruesome and inappropriate images are regularly shared and it can be quite a shock to see an unasked-for image appear in your news feed.
Who owns social media sites and how do they make money?
These sites are owned and operated by organisations.
We don’t pay a fee to use them, but the owners make money from advertising and sponsorship.
What are the grey areas with social media?
They do make tremendous efforts to keep the worst of it off their platforms but there are always grey areas where it is one person’s opinion versus another person.
Who are stakeholders?
You, and all of the other users of these sites are stakeholders. How would the issues highlighted on the previous page affect you? How might they affect younger/older people or those who are vulnerable?
The organisation who owns the service is another stakeholder. What are their responsibilities? Who should they be protecting? What might happen to them if they continue to allow unethical content on their platforms? How might the public perceive them if they continue to read news stories about them? How might they be affected if advertisers decided they didn’t want to be associated with the platform any longer?
Businesses / individuals who pay to advertise are another stakeholder. How might they be affected by negative news stories? Would it reflect badly on their own business?
What is a digital divide?
There are people in this country who cannot afford to buy and run a computer. This means that they, and their family, begin to fall behind others who regularly use computers.
How can a digital divide negatively affect others?
When they want to apply for a job they might find it harder to compete with others who are familiar with computers and software applications. Their children could be disadvantaged because a lot of homework and projects now require research using the Internet.
What factors can cause a digital divide?
- Money - access is not free
Language - a large part of the Internet is written in English - Literacy - most of the internet includes text
- Age - older generations generally find new technology harder to use
- Physical - many people have disabilities that make using the internet more difficult than it should be.
What is the global divide?
The global divide is created by the fact that the level of access to technology is different in different countries. People in richer countries tend to have greater access to technology compared to poor countries.
Leads to increased inequality since the Internet and other technologies creates a lot of opportunities for people that have access to them
What projects have been created to go against global and digital divide?
Several British projects are aimed at improving Internet coverage in rural areas.
One Laptop per Child is a charity that gives children a laptop in Africa, Central Asia and South America
What is whistleblowing?
Governments and private companies do not always do the right thing. And sometimes they do the wrong thing, but keep it secret. When a worker discovers something is going on that they disagree with, they have to consider whether they are willing to risk their jobs or their freedom to let others know about the issue.
Is Whistleblowing legal?
The people leaking this information are usually breaking the law to do it, because they believe that the public should know about it. But once it is made public, information can’t be taken back.
What organisations are associated with whistleblowing?
The Internet is a powerful tool for spreading information. Organisations such as WikiLeaks and Cryptome will accept and publish information from whistleblowers.
What is the controversy in whistleblowing?
In the past, whistleblowers have accidentally released harmful data alongside what they were trying to protest - the identities of active military or intelligence personnel, for example.
Diplomatic information released through WikiLeaks is believed to have been one of the major causes of the Arab Spring - the series of political revolutions that sprang up across the Middle East throughout the 2010s. People have died because of the leaks, but they inspired others to protest against unfair and unjust governments.
Do the public have a right to all information that their governments have, or are there things that should be kept secret? Do individual workers have the right to make that decision? And can we trust organisations like WikiLeaks to publish what they receive in a safe and unbiased manner?
This is where the controversy lies.
What are the ethical questions brought up with self-driving cars?
If your car was about to hit a child crossing the street, would you swerve out of the way if it meant hitting two adults on the other side of the road?
- Computer scientists are hard at work making cars safer, and one of the ways this might be done is by taking humans out of the driver seat - having cars drive themselves. The ethical decisions a self-driving car has to make are no different from those a human driver will face. But it is up to their programmers to work out what their responses will be.
- How should the car be programmed to act when an accident is unavoidable? Should they prioritise the driver? Other drivers? Pedestrians?
- How much safer does a self-driving car have to be before it is no longer ethical to allow humans to drive at all?
- What might happen if hackers found a way to access and control self-driven cars
Are self-driving cars becoming more common?
Self-driving vehicles are already starting to appear on roads, and they will become increasingly common sights as time goes by. It is up to us to decide how to use this technology.
How is genetic screening done?
It is now practical and possible to get a comprehensive genetic analysis of yourself. This is possible with sophisticated computerised DNA sequencing machines.
What could genetic screening be used for?
You supply a DNA sample to a genetic analysis company and they provide a personalised report that includes insights into your ancestry, your genetic traits and health risks.
This information may be invaluable for someone who suspects they have inherited a family trait making them more likely to get a certain illness and so on. It could be invaluable for couples wanting to make family planning decisions.
What are some ethical issues with genetic screening?
However, what if another organisation insists on also seeing that information? For example, a life insurance company wants to use it to assess risk. What if an employer wants to know? Clearly this becomes an ethical issue once that deeply private information becomes public information.
As you know, the rest of your relatives may also have the same genetic traits - what if they are stigmatised because of this information? Now, it not only affects you, it can affect other people as well through no fault of their own.
Furthermore, it is not too difficult to get a DNA sample of a person without their knowledge - a hair from a brush would be enough. Obtaining such a sample without their pesmission becomes an ethical issue.
What are the main issues with genetic screening?
We are just getting to the point where society has to decide how to handle this kind of data. Think about these issues:
- prenatal screening for potential issues or gender selection
- paternity tests without permission
- personal genetic traits and any likely risks.
What is drone warfare and what can they do?
Drone warfare has become an increasingly important part of modern military doctrine. Unmanned robots patrol the skies above conflict zones. Some of them merely collect information and transmit it back to be analysed. But others can launch missiles at the push of a button…or with no input at all.
What is argument in favour of drone warfare?
The argument in favour of drone warfare is that no soldiers have to risk their lives, and that their targetting systems can be more precise than a rifleman on the ground.
What is argument against of drone warfare?
But drones are increasingly controversial for how easy they make it to kill from afar, allowing for indiscriminate attacks. If more attacks are made, even if they are more precise, it results in higher collateral damage, anger and retribution among the surviving community of the attack.
It is also entirely possible to program drones to act completely independently of human drivers, to allow them to make targetting decisions based on their programming and the standing orders they received when they were launched.
What is e-waste?
Electronic waste or e-waste is a huge problem around the world. Our old technology is often sent to landfill, not because it doesn’t work, but simply because it has been replaced by a newer version.
What is the major problem with e-waste?
The major problem with e-waste is that the toxic chemicals such as lead, arsenic and cadmium can leach into the soil over time. Then as rain washes it away, rivers and water supplies can be contaminated.
What did countries do in response to e-waste?
As a result most countries in the developed world have introduced strict regulations to prevent e-waste being dumped into landfill. Electronic components now have to be recycled.
In order to get around this, some countries have been sending their e-waste to less economically developed regions around the world where the regulations aren’t as strict.
We hear of e-waste mountains where people (even children) spend their days in hazardous conditions salvaging some of the precious metals from the discarded electronic goods to sell for cash. This practice can have a huge detrimental effect on their health and safety.
What are devices made from?
The plastic, the glass, the precious metals, rare minerals, steel, copper and all the other material that make up your phone, at some point had to be dug up as raw material. This raw material was then processed, refined, transported and shaped into each component.
What is a much better action to do rather than throw away a device?
So it does not make much sense to throw away all that material, energy and effort into landfill, never to be seen again.
A better way is to re-use as much of it as possible. The word is ‘sustainability’ - making as much use of our existing resources as possible.
What are the three main ways of sustainability?
There are three main ways to do this, often referred to as the “Three Rs”
Reduce
Reuse
Recycle
How do you reduce the amount of waste produced?
Reducing the amount of waste produced is fairly easy to do personally - just buy less stuff, and throw less away! Don’t replace devices that still work just because a new version has come out.
Computer systems can help reduce the amount of waste produced by making manufacturing more efficient. When less material and energy is used to produce an item, throwing it away will have less impact on the environment.
How to reuse devices?
Just because you are done with your mobile phone or computer doesn’t mean that nobody else has a use for it. It’s easier than ever to find someone willing to buy second-hand computer peripherals and devices using the internet, giving devices a new lease of life with a new owner.
There are a number of schemes that will re-distribute the items you donate for other people to use. Some are commercial companies and others are charities.
How do you re-use materials and devices?
Although re-use is the best idea as the device remains intact, eventually a device breaks and can’t be fixed. When this happens, the environmental impact of throwing away the remains can be minimised by salvaging as many of the components as possible, and breaking down the rest into their base materials. Those materials can then be recycled into new products.
What is another effect of computer systems on the enviroment?
Another effect of computer systems on the environment is the sheer amount of electricity used to power up the billions of computers around the world.
What has led to the higher daily use of electricity by the average person?
The rise of social networking and handheld computers such as tablets and mobile phones has led to a much higher daily use of electricity by the average person.
What does this electricity produce?
Electricity tends to produce greenhouse gases because of the way it is generated. Technology is helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by allowing for more environmentally-friendly sources such as wind and solar. Still, the less electricity used, the better for the environment.
How can technology reduce energy use?
- Many modern buildings have computer controlled systems in place that reduce the amount of energy they use.
- Solar panels to reduce the amount of electricity from the national grid
- Energy monitoring displays to help staff know what is using up the power
- Low energy LED lighting controls
- Water conservation systems to re-use water, especially in industrial factories
- Smart meters to help people at home keep track of their energy usage
What are data centres?
Data centres are facilities used to house an organisation’s IT operations and equipment. They can contain hundreds, even thousands of networked computers to store, process and distribute data.
What is effect of the data centre usage of power?
Data centres use a lot of energy to run the machines. They also generate a lot of heat, which requires even more power to manage. Data centres use about 3% of the global electricity supply, and is estimated to treble in the next decade. This will have a huge impact on greenhouse gas emissions.
How do data centres impact the enviroment?
They impact the environment in other ways, too. The buildings housing them need huge amounts of concrete, copper cabling and other materials. Often data centres are located in remote areas, requiring road extension and maintenance, and increasing the fuel consumption of employees. The computer components include rare and valuable materials.
How do data centres cause e-waste?
E-waste is also an issue. To prevent downtime even with heavy use, the machines are replaced even when they still have plenty of ‘life left in them
