OCR A-Level Computer Science Spec Notes
1.5 Legal, moral, cultural and ethical issues
1.5.1 Computing related legislation
(a) Data Protection Act 1998
- Is designed to protect personal data and focuses on controlling the storage of data about
the data subject.
- All data users must register with the Data Commissioner
There are eight provisions:
● Data must be processed fairly & lawfully
● Data must be adequate, relevant & not excessive
● Data must be accurate & up to date
● Data must not be retained for longer than necessary
● Data can only be used for the purpose for which it was collected
● Data must be kept secure
● Data must be handled in accordance with people’s rights
● Data must not be transferred outside the EU without adequate protection
(b) Computer Misuse Act 1990
Law aimed at illegal hackers who hack to exploit systems
- Offence to gain unauthorised access to computer material
● WIth intent to commit/facilitate commision of further crimes
● With intent to change the operation of a computer (Disturbing Viruses)
(c) Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988
- Any individual/organisation who produces media/software/intellectual property has
the ownership protected by the act
- Other parties not allowed to copy/reproduce/redistribute without permission from
copyright owner
(d) Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000
This act is about the use of the internet by criminals/terrorists. Regulates how authorities
monitor our actions. Certain organisations can:
- Demand ISPs to provides access to a customer’s communications.
- Allow mass surveillance of communications.
- Demand ISPs fit equipment to facilitate surveillance
- Demand access be granted to protected information
- Allow monitoring of an individual’s internet activities.
- Prevent the existence of such interception activities being revealed in court.
1.5.2 Moral and ethical issues
The individual moral, social, ethical and cultural opportunities and the risks of digital
technology:
● Computers in the workforce
Skill Sets for people have changed as technology advances:
- Robot manufacturing: Less direct manufacturing roles & more
technical/maintenance roles
- Online shopping: Less in-store jobs/more distribution (logistics) jobs
- Online banking: Closure of high street bank branches
● Automated decision making
Decisions which can be made by computers/systems. Depends of quality/accuracy of
data & precision of algorithm
- Electrical Power Distribution: Rapid responses to changing circumstances
- Plant Automation
- Airborne collision avoidance systems
- Credit assessments: Banks use system to create automatic assessments
- Stock Market Dealing: Automated Could have caused ‘flash crash’ (2010)
● Artificial intelligence
Perceived to either be beneficial or disadvantageous. AI is used daily for example:
- Credit-card checking: Looks for unusual credit card use to identify fraudulent
activity
- Speech recognition: Identify keywords/patterns to interpret meaning of speech
- Medical diagnosis systems: Self-diagnose illnesses & help medics in making
diagnoses
- Control systems: Monitor/interpret/predict events
● Environmental effects
- Computers are composed of: airborne dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs),
cadmium, chromium, radioactive isotopes, mercury
- Handled with great care during disposal
- Shipped off to countries with lower environmental standards
- Workers/children extract scrap metal from discarded parts which are
recycled/sold
● Censorship and the Internet
- Suppression on what can be accessed/published
- Material which is acceptable depends on the person
- Some countries apply censorship for political reasons
- Organisations e.g schools apply censorship that is beyond national censorship to
protect the individuals from material regarded as unsuitable by the organisation
● Monitor behaviour
- CCTV used to monitor behaviour
- Organisations track an individual's work to see if they are on target
- Organisations might track social media to ensure behaviour outside social media
is acceptable
● Analyse personal information
- Analysing data about an individual's behavior used to:
● Predict market trends
● Identify criminal activity
● Patterns to produce effective treatments for medical conditions
● Piracy and offensive communications
- Communications Act (CA) 2003
● This Act makes it illegal to ‘steal’ Wi-Fi access or send offensive messages or
posts.
● Under this Act, in 2012, a young man was jailed for 12 weeks for posting
offensive messages and comments about the April Jones murder and the
disappearance of Madeleine McCann
● Layout, colour paradigms and character sets
- Equality Act (2010)
● This Act makes it illegal to discriminate against individuals by not providing
a means of access to a service for a section of the public.
● This means web service providers have to make services more accessible e.g:
- Make it screen reader friendly
- Larger fonts/ Screen magnifier option
- Image tagging
- Alternate text for images
- Colour changes to factor colour blind people
- Transcripts of sound tracks/subtitles
