1.6.1 Ethical, legal, cultural and environmental impact — OCR GCSE Computer Science revision notes

Impacts of digital technology on wider society

The specification names five kinds of issue, and questions usually ask about one of them specifically — so the first skill is telling them apart.

Figure: The five kinds of issue

Issue	Concerns	Examples
Ethical	Whether something is morally right, regardless of whether it is legal	Automation replacing workers; whether an algorithm's decisions are fair; working conditions in factories making devices
Legal	Whether something breaks the law	Hacking, illegal downloading, misuse of personal data
Cultural	How technology changes how groups of people live and interact	Social media changing how people communicate; the digital divide between those with and without access; online shopping changing high streets
Environmental	Effects on the natural world	Energy used by data centres; e-waste from discarded devices; rare metals mined for components; against this, less travel and less paper
Privacy	Control over personal information	Data collected by websites and apps; tracking of location and browsing; surveillance cameras and facial recognition

Ethical and legal are the pair most often confused: something can be legal but widely considered unethical, and the two do not always move together.

Discussing an impact well means giving both sides. Technology rarely produces only harm or only benefit, and a discussion that names only one is incomplete.

Take the environmental impact of computers. Manufacturing consumes energy and rare metals; data centres consume a great deal of electricity; and discarded devices become e-waste, often shipped abroad and dismantled unsafely. But the same technology lets people work from home rather than commuting, replaces paper documents, allows video meetings instead of flights, and makes energy grids and transport more efficient.

A strong answer states the issue, gives an example, and then weighs it.

Legislation relevant to Computer Science

The specification requires the purpose of each Act and the specific actions it allows or prohibits.

Figure: The three named Acts

Legislation	Purpose	What it covers
Data Protection Act 2018	To protect personal data held about individuals	Data must be collected lawfully and for a stated purpose, kept accurate and secure, held no longer than necessary, and not used for other purposes. Individuals may see the data held about them and have errors corrected
Computer Misuse Act 1990	To make hacking and related activity criminal offences	Prohibits unauthorised access to computer material; unauthorised access with intent to commit a further offence; and unauthorised modification of computer material, such as spreading a virus or deleting files
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988	To protect the rights of people who create original work	Makes it illegal to copy, distribute, adapt or sell someone else's work — software, music, films, images, text — without permission

A distinction worth being precise about: the Computer Misuse Act covers unauthorised access to a system, and the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act covers copying someone's work. Downloading a film illegally is a copyright matter, not a computer misuse one — nobody's system was broken into.

Software licences

The need to license software follows from copyright. Software is a created work, so it is automatically protected — which means that without permission, nobody else may legally copy or use it. A licence is that permission: it sets out what the user is allowed to do with the software, how many machines it may be installed on, and whether it may be modified or shared.

The specification requires the features of two types.

Figure: Open source and proprietary

	Open source	Proprietary
Source code	Provided, and may be read and changed	Not provided; the user receives only the compiled program
Modification	Users may change the software and often redistribute their version	Not permitted
Cost	Usually free	Usually purchased, commonly off-the-shelf
Support	Community forums and volunteers; no guaranteed help	Professional support from the company that sells it
Testing and reliability	Many people can inspect the code and find faults, but quality varies between projects	Tested by the company before release; more consistent
Updates	May be frequent, or may stop if the project is abandoned	Provided by the company while the product is supported

The defining difference is access to the source code and the right to change it — everything else follows from that.

Worked example

A small charity with almost no budget and no IT staff needs office software. Recommend a licence type, with benefits and drawbacks.

Take the budget first: open source software is usually free, which matters a great deal to a charity with almost none.
But take the second constraint seriously: no IT staff means no one to configure or fix problems.
Open source support is community-based, with no guarantee of help — which is a real risk without in-house expertise.
Proprietary software offers professional support, but has to be paid for, and may need a licence per machine.
Weigh them and commit rather than leaving it balanced.

Answer: Open source, because the cost saving is decisive for a charity with almost no budget, and mainstream open source office software is well established and widely documented. The drawback is that support comes from community forums rather than a company, which is a genuine risk with no IT staff — so it is the right choice provided someone is willing to search for answers, and proprietary software with paid support would be better if that is not realistic.

Common mistake

Open source does not simply mean free. It means the source code is available and may be modified — some open source software is sold, and plenty of free software is proprietary with the code kept secret.

Software licence: permission setting out what a user may do with a piece of software, how many machines it may be installed on, and whether it may be modified or shared

Before you practise

The five kinds of issue: ethical, legal, cultural, environmental and privacy.
Ethical is about what is right; legal is about what the law allows — they are not the same.
Discuss impacts from both sides, since technology rarely produces only harm or only benefit.
Data Protection Act 2018: personal data must be collected lawfully, kept accurate and secure, and used only for its stated purpose.
Computer Misuse Act 1990: unauthorised access, access with intent to commit a further offence, and unauthorised modification.
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988: protects original work from being copied, distributed or adapted without permission.
Illegal downloading is a copyright matter, not computer misuse.
A licence grants permission to use software and sets out what may be done with it.
Open source provides the source code and allows modification; proprietary does not and is usually purchased.
Open source is not a synonym for free.

Impacts of digital technology on wider society

Legislation relevant to Computer Science

Software licences

Before you practise

Now practise it