Ethical, legal and environmental impacts: free AQA GCSE Computer Science practice questions

The mistakes that cost the most marks

Most of these are answers that stopped halfway.

• Giving only one side. These questions almost always want benefits, drawbacks and a conclusion.
• Naming the wrong law. Unauthorised access is the Computer Misuse Act. Mishandling personal data is the Data Protection Act. Copying software is the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.
• Writing it is bad for the environment with no mechanism. Say which stage, manufacture, use or disposal, and why.
• Treating ethical and legal as the same thing. Something can be legal and still widely considered wrong.
• Saying automation destroys jobs with nothing else. Mention the new jobs created and the retraining problem.
• Describing open source as free software only. The defining feature is that the source code is available to study and modify.

Ethical, legal and environmental are three different questions

An ethical issue is about what is right. A legal issue is about what the law allows. An environmental issue is about the effect on the planet. The same technology often raises all three at once, and the exam separates them because something can be perfectly legal and still be widely considered wrong. Questions in this topic are usually about weighing benefits against drawbacks. A one sided answer rarely gets full marks. Give both sides and then a judgement.

Privacy, automation and the digital divide

Organisations collect far more data than people realise, through accounts, apps, loyalty cards, location services and cookies. The benefits are personalisation and convenience. The costs are profiling, loss of control and the damage done when the data leaks. Data collected for one purpose can be combined with data from elsewhere to reveal something the person never disclosed, which is why I have nothing to hide is a weak argument. Automation and artificial intelligence raise the question of who is responsible when a system makes a harmful decision, and whether a system trained on biased data will treat people unfairly. Automation removes some jobs and creates others, and the new jobs often need different skills, which is why retraining is part of the answer. The digital divide is the gap between people with good access to technology and connectivity and people without. It affects education, employment and access to services, between countries and within them.

Surveillance and the environment

Governments can block content and monitor communications. The trade off is between security and freedom, and the exam expects you to argue both sides. The environmental cost has three stages. Manufacture needs rare earth metals and other materials that must be mined, using energy and water and causing pollution. Use is dominated by data centres, which consume very large amounts of electricity for computing and cooling. Renewable energy and more efficient hardware reduce this cost without removing it. Disposal produces electronic waste containing toxic substances such as lead and mercury, and sending it abroad to be broken up by hand harms both people and the environment. Recycling and repair extend a device's life and reduce waste.

The three laws and what each one covers

The Data Protection Act governs how personal data must be handled: collected for a stated purpose, kept accurate and secure, not kept longer than needed, and individuals have the right to see the data held about them. A company that keeps customer data for ten years after the customer has left is a Data Protection Act question. The Computer Misuse Act makes unauthorised access to computer material an offence, with more serious offences for accessing with intent to commit a further crime and for modifying material without permission. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act protects original work, including software, music and images. Copying or distributing without permission is an infringement. Open source and Creative Commons licences are ways of granting permission in advance.

Open source, proprietary, and how to write the answer

Open source software is distributed with its source code and can be studied and modified. Proprietary software keeps its source code closed. Each has advantages in cost, support and control, and a good answer names them instead of picking a side. Good answers in this topic name the specific law and the specific action, for example accessing a colleague's account without permission breaches the Computer Misuse Act. That is illegal, on its own, is the weak answer.