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T2 - Ethical Issues

The Digital Divide

With a lot of modern services now adopting the use of the internet, people who have no access to it are at a great disadvantage compared to those who have access. When someone who has never used the internet has to use a device that relies on it, this can cause a lot of confusion and it will be near impossible for that user to use the device.

This can mainly be a problem for people living in developing nations where digital technology is near non-existent. This divide can also be seen in developed nations between the rich and the poor and between those who live in the cities and those who live in rural areas.

While people in developing nations would have little to no internet access, poor and rural living people in developed nations would have very slow internet access, for some, no access at all.

Difficulties Experienced By The Elderly & The Disabled

For older and disabled people, it can be a challenge for them to keep up with the rapidly changing technology. It becomes harder for the elderly to adapt due to diseases like dementia, where their memories start to fade and learning new things makes it near impossible.

For people with disabilities, it can be a challenge to cope with the changes too. Fortunately, there are organisations creating devices that can aid those with disabilities. When new technology is released, people with disabilities usually have to wait for something to be made so it is easier for them to use. That can be a very long waiting time, unless the new technology is released with those aids built with it.

Privacy Issues

Websites and other applications are collecting data about all of their visitors. Cookies are used by a lot of the websites and applications to collect the data and have it stored on the visitors computer.

This data will be used for targeted advertising, e.g. if someone is searching for a hotel, the data that the cookies collect can then be used to change the advertisements to hotel websites. This will change again when they start searching for something else.

There are a lot of concerns around the amount of private data that is collected and how it is used. Some companies have been caught illegally selling this data to other companies and this can lead to those companies then harassing those people with phone calls, such as trying to get them to sign up to a scam through false information.

Personal Data & How It Should Be Protected

Organisations that collect personal data must take into consideration how they will store, use and secure the data. This data must be tightly secured due to it being personal information.

When this data has been stored, it could be secured through the use of an encryption algorithm, e.g. SHA and AES.

When securing personal data, the organisations must also take into consideration how someone is going to access their data and only have that person be allowed to access it. This can be done through giving people unique codes and passwords to access their data and secured even more with the use of personal questions that only an individual will know, e.g. a family members middle name, the street they grew up on, etc.

Legal & Ethical Considerations (England, Wales & N. Ireland)

Organisations that collect data are not allowed to share it with other organisations unless agreed upon by the individual of that data. This is part of the Data Protection Act 1998, which was put in place to stop organisations from mishandling personal information.

Risks Of Losing Control Of Personal Data Stored Online

Storing data to the cloud takes away the control of keeping it secure from the person or organisation uploading that data. Once it is uploaded, it is now up to the cloud service provider to keep that data safe and secure. If a provider does not keep updating its security software, an attacker could find their way into the servers storing the data and potentially use it for illegal and malicious intentions, depending on the importance of that data.

If the data was sensitive information about an organisation, e.g. stored employee usernames and passwords, then the attacker has access to hundreds of computers within the organisation and possibly access to some mobile devices too, if they are connected.

Potential Dangers Of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is already being used in a lot of today's technology. This AI is not the super advanced intelligence that we have come to know from Science Fiction stories, not yet anyway.

Having artificial intelligence installed into everything causes for concern. At the moment, AI is not the most intelligent and it requires a lot of specific commands to do something correctly. It already has a hard time understanding some people through a voice input.

The biggest cause for concern among the development of AI is when they become more intelligent than us humans. They could make decisions that do not fully align with what we think, thus them becoming a potential threat. If the AI was installed into systems that can launch Weapons of Mass Destruction in response to a threat, this could be used to their advantage to wage war if they see that different mindset as a threat themselves.

Dangers & Ethical Issues Of Robot Weapon Systems

With the rise of robot systems being implemented into a lot of job roles, the military have also come up with ideas on how to make and use a robot system to help in dangerous situations. This is to cut down the amount of soldiers being sent into extremely dangerous locations/conditions and potentially being killed or suffering mental health problems, such as, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
An issue with systems like this is that they cannot tell the difference between someone who is a potential threat and someone who is completely innocent.

Another issue is that these systems take away the human essence and could scare the local population even more.

Negative Aspects Of Internet Use

The internet is a powerful tool where anyone can search for anything. This can be a positive but at the same time it can be a negative aspect.

The internet can be used to take bullying to another level. A student could be getting bullied in school and this bullying could also be taken to the internet if the bully is willing to.

The 'Darknet' is a form of the internet not greatly known to the public. The 'Darknet' can only be accessed through specially made browsers and even then the user still needs to be specific in what they are looking for.

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