OCR A Level Computer Science
1.5: Legal, moral, cultural and ethical issues
1.5: Legal, moral, cultural and ethical issues
| Keyword | Definition |
|---|---|
| Accurate | requirement that data must be correct |
| DPA | Legislation introduced in 1998 (Data Protection Act) which ensures that personal data is kept accurate, up to date, safe, secure and private |
| Legislation | Law that individuals and companies must follow |
| Personal data | any information stored that could be used to identify an individual |
| Private | requirement under DPA that a user's data should not be shared with anyone other than those who the user has explicitly given consent. |
| Safe | requirement under DPA that data must be stored in a way that is not going to be accidentally lost |
| Secure | requirement under DPA that sufficient steps must be taken to prevent unauthorised access to data |
| Up to date | requirement under DPA that data must be edited to match when a user's data changes |
| Keyword | Definition |
|---|---|
| Data destruction | illegal activity under CMA where data is deleted without permission |
| Data theft | illegal activity under CMA where data is accessed without authorisation |
| Fraud | illegal activity under CMA where computer systems are used to deliberately deceive individuals or companies |
| Hacking | illegal activity under CMA where computer hardware or software is deliberately misused with malicious intent |
| Planting of viruses | illegal activity under CMA where a computer system is deliberately infected with malicious software |
| Software piracy | illegal activity under CMA where program code is copied without permission |
| Keyword | Definition |
|---|---|
| Copyright | legal protection (under CDPA) of a media product (book, image, recording, software) |
| CPA | Copyright, Designs and Patent Act (1988). Legislation which protects the intellectual property of an individual or company |
| Intellectual Property | an idea, product or design that belongs to an individual or organisation that can be protected by CDPA |
| Patent | legal protection (under CDPA) of a design (but not software in the UK) |
| Trademark | legally protected name of a company or product (not under CDPA) |
| Keyword | Definition |
|---|---|
| Censored | certain activities can be prevented from being revealed in court under RIPA |
| Individual activities | can be monitored under RIPA |
| ISPs | can be ordered under RIPA to disclose customer's personal data |
| RIPA | Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 which gives rights to certain public bodies such as the police and government |
| Surveillance equipment | hardware that an ISP can be demanded to install in order to facilitate mass monitoring of communications |
| Keyword | Definition |
|---|---|
| Artificial intelligence | Can allow data to be processed in a way that learns from its mistakes. This can be biased by input data or could operate without human discriminatory behaviour |
| Automated decision making | Can cause complex moral questions to be simplified to an algorithm followed by a computer system which is unable to take into account the complexity of a real life scenario, but can save time and money. |
| Censorship | How computer systems can either give repressed people a voice (e.g. encrypted social media) or be used to limit people's access to information (e.g. blocking web sites) |
| Character sets | ASCII can only store letters and symbols used in the american alphabet. Unicode can represent any international characters such as accents or non latin scripts. |
| Colour paradigms | consideration that needs to be given to the use of certain colours which represent concepts like stop / go or good / bad. Different cultures may have different connotations attached to different colours and some individuals may be colour blind |
| Computers in the workforce | Can cause humans to lose jobs and be replaced by automated processes or can cause humans to move from low skill, low wage jobs to higher skilled higher wage jobs maintaining and designing automated systems. |
| Environmental effects | How computer systems can impact on the world in a positive way (e.g. recycling) or a negative way (e.g. pollution) |
| Layout | consideration that needs to be given to how a web page or application is displayed to take into account of some cultures reading from right to left rather than left to right. |
| Monitor behaviour | Individuals or organisations can use technology to track the location and habits of people with or without their consent. |
| Offensive communications | technology can be used to distribute terrorist material, hate speech or pornography |
| Personal information | can be analysed to provide better customer service or can be abused or sold for profit |
| Piracy | intellectual property can be shared easily using technology without the consent of the creator or owner. |
| The Internet | Can allow long range communication and collaboration which can boost productivity but can also provide access to illegal or immoral content |