Question Areas

Exam questions will be taken from the following areas:

•     cyber security

•     mobile technologies

•     wireless networking

•     cloud storage

•     hacking (unauthorised access to a computer system)

•     wearable technologies

•     computer based implants

•     autonomous vehicles

Ethical Issues

Ethics is societies views on how people should and shouldn't behave. There are no legal punishments for behving unethically but society may punish you by avoiding your products or shaming you.

Examples of ethical issues you could discuss include:

• Internet Addiction - our devices and the apps on them are often designed to make you want to use them more. People who use their phones and other devices frequently shows signs of addiction. Is it ethical for companies and developers to purposefully design something to be addictive? What could be done to stop this?

• Anti-Social Media - The more human beings communicate over devices, the less they utilise communication skills like recognising body language or facial expressions. Is it ethical that our devices are actually devolving us? What can be done to stop this?

• Tracking - devices often have a geolocation feature for helpful applications like maps or taxis but this same feature can be used to track people, by law enforcement or by malicious actors. What can be done to stop this?

• Liability (autonomous vehicles) - If a car that drives itself gets into an accident, who is legally accountable? the owner? the manufacturer? the company that programmed it? no one?

• Jobs (autonomous vehicles) - if cars become able to drive themselves, taxis, bus drivers and lorry drivers could all find themselves without a job. is this ethical? What can be done to help them?

• Digital Divide - This term describes the gap between those who have access to the internet and devices and those who do not. As the world becomes more and more online, things like banking, paying bills and even applying for jobs becoems more difficult if you don't have access to the internet. These people are at a disadvantage. Is this fair? What can be done to stop this?

Examples of ethical bebefits you could discuss include:

• Safer (autonomous vehicles) - Computers are faster than humans and by being connected to central servers, they can share information with eachother. This means they may be less likely to get into an accident by reacting faster and can learn from other accidents worldwide through sharing information.

• Cost Effective (autonomous vehicles) - Businesses may save moeny by not needing to pay a human to drive the vehicle.

• Health Care  - By 2020, more than 50% of smartphone users had a health care app installed on their phones, this can make managing conditions like diabetes or epilpsy easier as they are constantly being monitored and updated. Wearable technology like a smart watch can aid in this further with additional sensors and health related mesaurements like heart rate, blood oxygen levels and ECGs.

• Computer Based Implants - There are a number of computer based implants that can improve peoples lives, for example, pacemakers to control irregular heart beats or cochlear implants to help deaf people to hear.

• Wireless Networking - 4G and 5G networks are offering speeds comparable to wired networking through relatively cheap sim cards and plans from providers with as much as 20GB of 5G data for £10 per month. This supports people who may not have access to fast broadband to utilise applications and services that require a fast connection, like Netflix for example.

Legal Issues

The Law is the governments views on how people should and shouldn't behave. There are punishments for behaving incorrectly and these rules are enforced by law enforcement agencies like the police.

There are 3 laws you need to know:

Computer Misuse Act (1990):

Computer misuse is about ensuring peoplke use computers correclty and don't commit crime using them.

Part 1: Unauthorised access to computer material - gaining access to a computer system that isn't yours without permission of the owner. This law also covers modifying software or data without permission like changing the code of software to remove activation keys.

Part 2: Unauthorised access with intent to commit or facilitate crime - gaining access to a computer system that isn't yours without permission of the owner and using that computer system to commit or facilitate further crimes.

Part 3: Unauthorised acts with intent to impair, or with recklessness as to impairing, operation of computer - using tools that can impair the function of the computer, for example, a zipbomb that will fill the RAM of the computer and cause it to crash and be unusable.

Part 3ZA: Unauthorised acts causing, or creating risk of, serious damage - doing something to a computer system that impairs its use to a point where serious damage may or did occur. For example, hacking a police system and causing a delay in response to emergency situations which could lead to serious consequences for others.

Part 3A: Making, Supplying or obtaining anything which can be used in computer misuse offences - Downloading or creating software that can be used to gain unauthorised access or harm a computer system, even if you haven't used it.

Punishments:

• Up to 2 years in prison and a £5,000 fine for breaking part 1.

• Up to 10 years in prison and an unlimited fine (judge will decide) for breaking part 2, 3 and 3A.

• Up to life in prison (depending on situation) for breaking part 3ZA.

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988):

Copyright, designs and patents is about making sure others don't steal the inventions or works of others.

Copyright: Copyright protects books, video, music and software. Copyright typically lasts 70 years after publication or an author’s death. Copyright lets an author or musician decide how their work should be used.

Designs and Patents: Inventions are covered by patents. A patent prevents anyone else using the invention for 20 years.

Punishments:

• Up to 10 years in prison and an unlimited fine.

Data Protection Act (2018):

Data protection is about looking after the personal data of people.

Data Collection: 

Organisations that collect personal data must:

• Only collect the data for a specific purpose

• Make sure the data is accurate

• Data that is not necessary for the specific purpose must not be collected

Data Processing: 

There are six reasons for lawful processing

1. Consent - A person has agreed to their data being used.

2. Legal obligation - Processing the data is needed to meet the law.

3. Public task - For performing an official task.

4. Contract - Processing is needed for a contract.

5. Vital interests - Processing is needed to protect someone’s life.

6. Legitimate interests - There is a clear benefit to the user or company.

Data Storage: 

Data must be stored so that:

• The data is kept accurate and up to date

• It is not kept any longer than necessary

• It must not be transferred to other countries unless they can keep it protected

• Customers must be told of a data breach within 72 hours of it happening

• Data must be stored so that it is protected from unauthorised access

Rights:

• The right to view data stored about you by organisations for free

• 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

Privacy:

• Ordinary citizens normally value their privacy and may not like it when governments or security services have too much access.

• Governments and security services often argue that they cannot keep their citizens safe from terrorism and other attacks unless they have access to private data.

Punishments:

• Warnings.

• Order to comply.

• Fine of 4% of company turnover or £20 million, whichever is bigger.

Environmental Issues

Environmental issues are best discussed by looking at the impact of a single device, take a smartphone for example.

The phone you have in your pocket, bag or maybe even your hand is made up of:

• Plastic

• Aluminium

• Steel

• Fibreglass

• Gold

• Copper

All of these materials must be mined from the earth and the machines that do it use:

• Diesel

• Water

Now, lets look at the lifecycle of that phone:

1. Mining for raw materials

2. Maunfacturing phone in factory

3. Purchase and use by you

4. Recycling Centre

5. Reprocessing plant

The environmental impact of which is:

• Mining raw materials leads to contamination and erosion

• Plastics damage the environment if not recycled

• Diesel is needed to mine the materials

• Diesel is needed to transport the materials to the factory

• Gas and coal are used to power the factories

• Diesel is needed to transport the phone to shops

• Diesel is needed to transport the phone to the recycling centre

• Gas and coal power the recycling center

• Diesel is needed to transport the parts from the recycling centre to the reprocessing plant

• Gas and coal power the reprocessing plant

Lets now look at the how renewable this all is:

• Plastic - Not Renewable

• Aluminium - Not Renewable

• Steel - Not Renewable

• Fibreglass - Not Renewable

• Gold - Not Renewable

• Copper - Not Renewable

• Diesel - Not Renewable

• Water - Renewable

Now for the stats:

In the UK:

• 1.6 million tonnes of e-waste is generated each year

• 23% of electronics thrown away still work or need minor repair

• Each mobile phone contains about 24mg of gold

Worldwide we throw away:

• 300 tons of gold (£9 billion)

• 1000 tons of silver (£400 million)

• 16 million tons of steel (£6.5 billion)

Model Answer

Below is a question from a past paper and a full marks answer with key points bolded and a named law underlined.

Wearable devices, such as smartwatches and fitness trackers, have become more popular in recent years. This has led to an increase in the amount of personal, health-related data being collected by technology companies.

Discuss the:

•   benefits of collecting personal, health-related data using wearable devices

•   data privacy issues related to the collection of personal, health-related data

•   legal issues related to the collection of personal, health-related data.

A benefit of collecting personal, health-related data using wearable devices is that the wearble device could alert the wearer to any issues that may be developing and consenting to sharing this data with healthcare organisations could help to identify health issues early so that they can be treated before it is too late. However, a privacy issue that this may cause is that health-related data is personal and the personal data collected can be very private and if the company storing it has a breach of data security this could be embarrassing for the individual whose data it is. This could open the company up to legal issues because the data protection act states that data must be stored so that it is protected from unauthorised access and that customers must be told of a data breach within 72 hours of it happening which could lead to questions over whether the company controlling the data complies with data protection regulations.