1.6 Ethical, legal, cultural and environmental impacts of digital technology

Cultural issues of technology

Cultural Issues are prevalent in the world and determines how the use of technology varies across the world. The digital divide relates to the gap between those who can access modern digital technology such as computers and the internet and those who have limited access. This is often a financial problem. Some people may have to share computers or may have cheaper, low power computers and low speed connections. The digital divide can be seen in people in cities compared to people in rural areas, younger people compared to elderly people, and developed countries compared to developing countries. The digital divide is important technology has led to numerous international benefits including boosted growth, improved product delivery, enhanced communication and increased opportunities. This can be out of the hands of users as countries with limited digital infrastructure can mean people have poor internet speeds with high costs. Some jobs have moved abroad to save costs, such as help centres for online issues. Tasks can be outsourced to freelancers in other countries where people are content to be paid less for their time and services. For example, some companies will hire temporary web developers from countries such as India to work for them for a lower salary than local workers. Another change to work that technology has brought is the loss of jobs, especially low-skilled jobs such as factory workers that have seen their roles replaced by technology and automation. However, technology has also created millions of new jobs, including installing and maintaining the machines that replace other roles.

Environmental issues of technology

Environmental issues concern the natural world and the negative effects of producing, using and discarding computer systems and devices. In the past 30 years, the number of technological devices has increased astronomically and thousands of new devices are manufactured each day. These devices need to be assembled using a range of materials, including plastics, metals and some rarer elements and need a considerable amount of electrical power to run. Systems like server rooms and data centres must be powered on all day, every day, which uses a large amount of energy for example for water and fans that keep these rooms cool. Generating the electricity to power computers creates pollution, an average PC could require up to 1.5x more energy per year than a fridge. Computers are difficult to recycle and discarded components can lead to land, water and air pollution due to harmful materials, such as lead and mercury, leaking into the environment. Smartphone trends are also negative for the environment as new devices are released yearly, with minor upgrades that people buy to appear fashionable and up-to-date. To lessen the environmental impact, people should reuse and recycle their devices.

Ethical issues of technology

Ethical issues of technology can be subjective. A drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and can be very beneficial for example to search and rescue teams as it can locate people easily without requiring to send a human to a difficult access location, filming and photography agencies for television, and special events, monitoring pollution levels in the atmosphere, tracking or monitoring wildlife such as Rhino populations, surveillance for the police and the military, and to deliver goods. People think that drones can be used with bad intentions by bad people. Self-driving cars, are in theory safer because they are less likely to make the mistakes that humans do and they can't become distracted or tired, self-driving cars should be more fuel efficient because they will take optimal routes and won't get lost, drivers in the car can perform other tasks such as work or planning, goods would likely require less time to be delivered and things and people can be transported quicker. However there are disadvantages such as being very expensive, if they do crash it is likely going to be more severe, and jobs may be jobs including drivers, and motorway services. In recent years AI has become more common in the home and on devices like smartphones; assistants such as Siri and Alexa are prime examples of modern home AI. AI Chatbots like ChatGPT have become more popular in recent years but have led to issues such as plagiarism, misinformation and breaking copyright laws. Benefits of AI include; Processes are sped up as computers can analyse large amounts of data much quicker than a human, AI can be used when a human is unavailable such as using a symptom checker on the internet for a minor illness rather than booking and waiting for a doctor, repetitive or time-consuming tasks can instead be completed by a computer such as searching and sorting scientific data or generating ideas, images or audio from a prompt. However there are disadvantages; AI can store and process a lot of personal data especially personal assistants like Alexa and this data can be viewed by the company that develops it and could be hacked by attackers, AI is programmed by humans and mistakes in code could have disastrous consequences if the AI is used to make important decisions, such as military deployment. AI GPT tools like ChatGPT can give incorrect results, may use copyrighted material in their response and students may use it to submit work that is not their own.

The Data Protection Act 2018

The Data Protection Act 2018 was introduced to protect the privacy of people's data by protecting people whose data is collected and processed by organisations. Each person who has their data collected is known as a data subject. An employee of the company is appointed as the data controller and they have to register with the Information Commissioner. The Information Commissioner in the UK is responsible for managing several laws, most importantly the Data Protection Act. When registering with the Information Commissioner, the company's data controller must be clear on exactly what information is being collected, why it is being collected, and what it will be used for. Data collected must be collected legally, only used for specific reasons, must be relevant and not excessive, accurate and up to date, not be stored for longer than necessary and must be stored securely.

The Computer Misuse Act 1990

The Computer Misuse Act 1990 was introduced to punish people who use computers inappropriately by issuing fines and jail sentences as long as the misuse was on purpose. The 3 main principle that cannot be broken are; no unauthorised access to data for example by hacking, no using data for illegal activities such as for blackmail, theft, and identity fraud and finally no unauthorised modification of data for example sending a virus to change data.

The Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988

The Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988 makes it a criminal offence to copy work that is not your own without the permission of the creator or the copyright holder. This can refer to text, images, music, videos or software. Owning the copyright of an image might not prevent others from copying and using it but this act means that the owner can bring legal proceedings in court to those who have stolen their work. However, it is difficult to trace who has stolen work once it has been uploaded to the internet and copies can easily spread, especially television shows, movies, and songs. This act specifically prohibits; making copies of copyrighted material to sell to others, importing and downloading illegally copied material, and distributing enough copyrighted material to have a noticeable effect on the copyright holder.

Software licences

A software licence refers to how a user can legally use the software, and there are two main types; open source licence and a proprietary licence.

Open source software

Source code is the software code written by programmers. If the software is open source, users can view and modify it. Python and Firefox are examples of open source software. The benefits of open source are; code can be customised to the user's or organisation's needs, unwanted features can be removed to make the software run faster, users can modify, debug, and improve a product. Open source software is often low in price and sometimes free. The disadvantages of open source software include; security risks as some users may add malicious code to the program, technical skills may be required to be able to adapt source code efficiently while maintaining the code.

Proprietary licence / closed source

Proprietary licence is closed source as the code is restricted so users are prevented from being able to view or modify the source code. The right to use the software can be bought but you can't own it. Microsoft office is an example of closed source software. The benefits of closed source software is that; the software will definitely be well tested and has been professionally developed, updates will generally be more secure, most developers will provide some form of help and support, a company can be held accountable if the software does not perform as listed in the terms and conditions upon purchase. However there are disadvantages such as; users must rely on the company to provide updates and fix issues, this might be infrequent or stop completely, often the software isn't free and costs a lot of money, and users cannot modify, debug, or improve the code for their own benefit.