3.8- Ethical, Legal and Environmental Impacts of Digital Technology

Environmental Damage

Mining Raw Materials leads to contamination and erosion
Plastics damage the environment if not recycled
Gas and Coal needed to power factories
Diesel is needed to transport raw materials, parts and the final product

Impacts of E-Waste on the Environment

Very harmful to humans and the environment if not processed correctly
Lithium batteries can catch fire and may be hard to recover
If components cost too much to recover they go to landfill
Mining materials damages the environment

Ethical Impact on Mobile Technologies (Mobile Phones, Smartphones, Tablets and Laptops)

Benefits:

• Use in emergency- far easier to contact emergency services when someone is injured, so will protect people’s lives

• Able to work from home- potentially better work environment for mental health, and less travel so good for environment

• Able to contact people from far away, so able to stay in contact with family members to allow for long distance relationships, improving mental health and reducing the need for travel

• Tracking features can be used by parents to keep track of their children, protecting them and making sure they are safe, or used by the police to help catch criminals and to track people who have been kidnapped

Issues:

• Allows for use of social media, and leads to cyberbullying and addiction

• Lead to antisocial behaviour due to spending most of time on screen, and reducing face to face socialising, reducing social skills in the younger generations

• Social media and mobile technology allows for spread of radical views about terrorism and far right beliefs through propaganda

• Information can be traced such as search history, and location which can lead to privacy issues for the general public, don’t want to feel like they are being tracked

• If hacked into, people can have their identities stolen because of how much info stored in mobile devices

Ethical Impact on Autonomous Vehicles

Benefits

• Reduces costs for public transport and commercial travel as no driver is needed- this can encourage people to use public transport, which helps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions

• No need to own a car, as cars can move between people when users are at their location, so will reduce the total amount of cars on the road, both reducing carbon dioxide emissions and reduce the waste and need for raw materials, link to environment

• Potentially safer as computers can react faster than humans, and make calculated decisions to produce the lowest possible risk, so can save lives, reduce road accidents, and also reduce the risk of drink driving

Issues:

• Legal issues arise on who is to blame if the car malfunctions and accidentally causes injury and death; also if the driver can decide specific settings on driving which increase the risk, are they to blame?

• Ethical issues arise

Ethical Impact on Wearable Technologies

Ethical Impact on Computer-Based Implants

Ethical Impact of Wireless Networking

Materials in Components

Lifecycle of a smartphone

1. Mining for Raw Materials
2. Manufacture
3. Purchase and Use
4. Recycling Centre
5. Reprocessing Plant

Renewable Material

A material that can be used repeatedly and doesn't run out due to it being naturally replaced

Non-Renewable Material

A material that once it is used up, it can't be replaced

Cloud Storage Advantages and Disadvantages

Ways to reduce the impact of E-Waste

Make devices that can be fixed with modular components
Use removable batteries
Use modern recycling facilities

Data Protection Act 2018

A law that covers the use and management of the personal data of people. The Law incorporates the EU General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR)

Principles of Data Protection Act 2018

used fairly, lawfully and transparently
used for specified, explicit purposes
only used where necessary
accurate and kept up to date
kept for no longer than is necessary
handled in a secure way, including protection against unlawful or unauthorised processing, access, loss or damage

Reasons for Lawful Processing

Rights of Data Protection Act 2018

The right to view data stored about you by organisations for free - previously it cost up to £10
You must consent to having marketing sent to you - this consent must be 'opt-in'
The right to withdraw consent - mailing lists have an unsubscribe link for this
The right to make changes to your data if it is inaccurate
The right to be forgotten - allows you to delete your personal data

Methods of Securing Data

Using passwords for any systems with access to the data
Encrypting the data
Only allowing access to those users that need it
CCTV
Security guards
Two-factor authentication

Penalties from Data Protection Act (2018)

Issuing warnings to the organisation
Order the organisation to comply
Fines up to: 4% of company turnover or €20 million

Cookies

A small piece of data created by a website to store key information. They allow websites to:
Store data such as the contents of your shopping basket
Remember that you are logged into a website
Remember who you are
Track you
Target advertising to you

Computer Misuse Act (1990)

A law that made the following offences:
Unauthorised access to computer material
Unauthorised access with intent to commit or facilitate a crime
Unauthorised modification of software or data
Making, supplying or obtaining anything which can be used in computer misuse offences
Committing any of these crimes can result in up to 10 years in prison and a fine

Unauthorised Access

Unauthorised access is where a person gains access to a computer system without permission

Unauthorised Modification

Includes:
Deleting another user's files
Changing the content of documents
Altering the content of web pages
Rewriting computer programs to remove activation keys

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988)

An act that protects copyrighted material (such as books, videos, music and software)

Penalties of Copyright, Designs and Patents Act

Copyright or trademark infringement can result in:
Fines
Up to 10 years in prison

Preventing Copyright Infringement

Licence keys, activation keys and serial numbers
Holograms on physical products to show they are genuine
Online registration or activation will prevent the software from working if a licence has not been purchased