Implications of the use of digital technologies

Ethical implications — questions of right and wrong.

• AI bias and fairness.
• Privacy vs convenience.
• Surveillance and autonomy.
• Truthfulness (deepfakes, misinformation).
• Workplace monitoring.
• Addictive design.

Legal implications — required by law.

• Copyright and intellectual property.
• Data protection (GDPR, DPA).
• Computer misuse (hacking laws).
• Accessibility (Equality Act).
• Platform duties (Online Safety Act).

Social implications — effects on society.

• Digital divide.
• Mental health impacts.
• Job displacement.
• Polarisation and misinformation.
• Cultural homogenisation / fragmentation.

Environmental implications — physical world cost.

• Energy use (data centres, devices, crypto).
• E-waste (50m tonnes/year globally).
• Resource extraction (rare earth metals).
• Carbon emissions.
• Water use (cooling).

These overlap: copyright infringement is BOTH legal AND ethical. E-waste is BOTH environmental AND ethical (where does it go?).

Copyright automatically protects original creative works — books, music, software, photos, videos, articles. No registration needed; protection lasts 70 years after author's death (UK).

What copyright owners control:

• Copying (downloading, screenshotting, scanning).
• Distribution (sharing, uploading).
• Public performance / display.
• Derivative works (translations, adaptations).

What you can do without permission (Fair Dealing in UK):

• Limited educational use with attribution.
• News reporting (with limits).
• Research and private study.
• Criticism and review.
• Parody (since 2014).

Creative Commons licences let creators share work with chosen permissions:

• CC BY — attribution required.
• CC BY-SA — share-alike (derivatives must use same licence).
• CC BY-NC — non-commercial use only.
• CC BY-ND — no derivatives.
• CC0 — public domain (no rights reserved).

Plagiarism isn't the same as copyright infringement — plagiarism is passing off work as your own (academic offence) even when technically permitted. ALWAYS attribute.

1. Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Governs copyright. Infringement carries civil liability + criminal penalties for commercial-scale piracy.

2. Data Protection Act 2018 / UK GDPR. Personal data must be processed lawfully, kept minimised and accurate, deleted when no longer needed. Breach reporting within 72 hours. Fines up to £17.5m or 4% global turnover.

3. Computer Misuse Act 1990. Unauthorised access to computer systems is a criminal offence. Hacking, malware deployment, denial-of-service. Maximum sentence 14 years for serious offences.

4. Equality Act 2010. Digital services must be accessible to people with disabilities. Includes Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliance.

5. Online Safety Act 2023. New 'duty of care' on online platforms — especially for children. Forces age verification, content moderation, transparency. Fines up to £18m or 10% of global revenue.

Other relevant: Defamation Act 2013 (online libel), Consumer Rights Act 2015, Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (state surveillance).

AI bias. AI inherits biases from training data. Famous examples:

• Amazon's CV screening tool penalised women (trained on historical male-biased data).
• Facial recognition has higher error rates for darker skin tones.
• Loan algorithms discriminate against minorities.

Responses: diverse training data, audits, transparency requirements, regulation (EU AI Act).

Privacy and surveillance. Pervasive data collection. Workplace monitoring software tracks every keystroke. Public facial recognition. Smart devices listen in homes.

Responses: GDPR, privacy-respecting alternatives (Signal, Brave), legal restrictions on surveillance.

Deepfakes. AI-generated content indistinguishable from real. Used for:

• Fraud (CEO impersonation phone calls).
• Political manipulation.
• Non-consensual intimate imagery.

Responses: detection tools, watermarking, criminalisation (Online Safety Act).

Addictive design. Platforms optimised for engagement, exploiting dopamine loops. Particularly harmful for minors.

Responses: age-appropriate design, time limits, regulatory pressure.

Worker exploitation in tech supply chain. Mining of rare earth metals in poor regulatory environments. Content moderators viewing traumatic material.

Responses: ethical sourcing requirements, better moderator support.

Energy consumption.

• Global data centres: ~1–2% of electricity, growing with AI.
• A single large AI data centre: 100+ MW (= small town).
• Crypto mining: Bitcoin alone uses more energy than some countries.

Responses: renewable-powered data centres, efficiency improvements, AI model efficiency, regulation of crypto.

E-waste. ~50 million tonnes globally per year, growing 4% annually. Contains toxic materials (lead, mercury) AND valuable metals (gold, copper, rare earths). Only ~20% formally recycled.

Responses: extended producer responsibility, take-back schemes, EU 'right to repair' rules, design for longevity.

Resource extraction. Mining rare earth metals damages ecosystems, often in countries with weak regulation. Lithium, cobalt for batteries especially problematic.

Responses: recycling existing materials, alternative chemistries, ethical sourcing.

Water use. Data centres consume significant water for cooling. Causing tension in water-scarce regions.

Responses: dry cooling, location in water-rich areas.

Carbon footprint of internet use. Each web search ~0.2g CO2; an hour of video streaming ~36g; AI query much more.

Digital divide. Some people are excluded — geographic, economic, skill-based, age-based, disability-based.

Mental health. Particularly for teens — social comparison, anxiety, sleep disruption.

Education. Closing gaps via online learning OR widening them via unequal access.

Employment. Reshaping jobs — some destroyed (cashiers, drivers), others created (data scientists, AI ethicists).

Cultural change. Globalisation of culture via streaming; AI replacing some creative work; loss of intermediate cultural institutions (newspapers, etc.).

Civic engagement. New forms of participation (petitions, movements) AND new risks (manipulation, polarisation).

All require thoughtful policy responses, not just market forces.