Considerations
(Environmental and ethical)

Standards

When is comes to computer systems, the main types of consideration are environmental and ethical.

Ethical considerations are ones to do with what is right and what is wrong. Ethical considerations when developing computer systems are:

• Privacy
• Data security
• Copyright
• Terrorism
• Pricing

Data protection

Data Protection: Governments have implemented laws to protect their citizen’s data. In Britain, we have the UK Data Protection Act which protects data about us from being unrightly distributed. These measures are needed as it has become easier to copy and transmit data and make judgements about people.

Common data protection laws, like the UK Data Protection Act state that companies must:

• Let individuals view data about themselves.
• Correct or remove the data if requested.
• Not use the data in any unethical way that could cause damage to the individual.
• Protect the user’s data.
• Collect data for only specified and rightful purpose.
• Not transmit data outside the EU area.

Environmental concerns

Environmental concerns: Issues that affect the environment. Computer systems pose 2 main environmental issues:

• Waste production: The mass production of computers and rapid advancements in technology has lead to many computers being disposed of for technological and technical reasons. This E-waste contains toxic materials and takes up space.
• Energy consumption: The widespread use of personal computers and data centres has lead to huge energy consumption.