Digital technology changes what is possible, and raises questions about whether and how it should be used. This topic covers those impacts and the law surrounding them.
An ethical question asks whether something should be done, not whether it can be. Technology that is legal and technically sound can still raise it.
Questions of this kind arise over surveillance, automated decisions, and who is accountable when a system causes harm.
Several laws apply to computer use. Unauthorised access to a computer system is a criminal offence. Data protection law requires personal data to be handled fairly, kept only as long as it is needed, and used only for the purpose it was collected for.
People have rights over data held about them, including the right to see it and to have errors corrected.
Technology changes how people work, learn and communicate. Access is not equal: differences in income, location and skills mean some people benefit far less than others.
Designing for accessibility means a service can be used by people with a range of disabilities.
Manufacturing devices consumes raw materials and energy, and running data centres consumes electricity for both computing and cooling.
Discarded devices contain hazardous materials and recoverable metals, so repairing, reusing and recycling them reduces the impact.
Personal data is information that can identify someone. Collecting only what is needed limits the harm a breach can cause.
Consent is meaningful only if the person understands what will be collected and why. Devices that collect data continuously, and systems that identify people in public, raise privacy questions even when they are lawful.
Copyright gives the creator of an original work legal control over how it is used. Patents protect inventions and trademarks protect names and logos.
A software licence sets out how a program may be used and shared. Open source software allows the source code to be read and modified; proprietary software does not.
Systems that learn from data reflect the data they were trained on, so unrepresentative data produces systematic errors for some groups.
Where a decision affects someone, it matters whether the reasoning can be explained and who remains accountable for it.
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