The Impacts of Computing: Law, Ethics and the Environment · seed 1 · A4, ink-friendly. The answer key prints on its own page for grown-ups.
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Who gains, who loses, what the law says

Computing · Computer Systems · ages 15-16
Name ______________________   Date ____________

  1. Which list covers a smart speaker's environmental impact across its life?

    • Materials, manufacture, transport, use and disposal or recycling
    • Home electricity, excluding manufacture and server energy
    • Purchase price, shop wages and advertising costs, excluding extraction

  2. A clinic processes patient records under UK data protection law. Which statement describes a duty?

    • It may sell records because it holds them
    • It must protect data and have a lawful basis for using it
    • It must delete every patient record after one week, whatever its purpose

  3. What is access control?

    • Setting which people or devices may use resources
    • Recording activity while allowing everyone to open every file
    • Comparing a device's sale price with its manufacturing energy use

  4. A friend says keeping an old phone working has no environmental benefit because its materials were already mined. Which response fits lifecycle thinking?

    • Keeping it undoes mining impacts and makes charging harmless
    • Keeping it can delay a replacement, while energy use and disposal still count
    • Keeping it always uses more resources than replacement, regardless of either phone's condition

  5. A school feed finds revision videos quickly. Tests show one pupil group receives fewer useful recommendations. Which evaluation addresses both effects?

    • Count time saved and ignore unequal recommendations
    • Count unequal results and ignore faster access to useful videos
    • Weigh speed and unequal results, then test recommendations

  6. Why should a firm review access permissions and security after its files have been protected?

    • File protection makes every employee permanently entitled to every stored record
    • An initial security setup prevents later staff changes or new threats from affecting access
    • Access needs and threats change, so protection needs continuing checks

  7. A UK school has a personal-data breach likely to create a high risk to affected people's rights and freedoms. No notification exception applies. Informing the regulator removes its duty to inform affected people.

    Circle one:   True   False

  8. Tests show a hospital queue tool delays equally urgent patients from one group. Nobody intended this. What can you conclude from these facts?

    • The developers deliberately caused the delays, so their intention has been proved
    • An unequal outcome needs investigation; its cause is not established
    • The lack of harmful intent proves the tool is fair and needs no further testing
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Answer key

For grown-ups. Fold this page away before handing over the rest.

Who gains, who loses, what the law says W1-mt_veX-psjipc-s1

  1. Materials, manufacture, transport, use and disposal or recycling · Consider stages before, during and after use. Home electricity alone misses other resource use and pollution; financial costs are not an environmental-impact measure.
  2. It must protect data and have a lawful basis for using it · The clinic needs a lawful basis and appropriate protection. Holding records does not give unlimited permission to use or sell the information.
  3. Setting which people or devices may use resources · Access control sets permissions for resources. It is one protection measure, not a complete solution to every privacy or legal duty.
  4. Keeping it can delay a replacement, while energy use and disposal still count · Reuse can delay making a replacement. It does not undo past manufacturing impacts or remove the impacts of electricity use and eventual disposal.
  5. Weigh speed and unequal results, then test recommendations · The prompt gives a benefit and a harm. Evaluate both and investigate the unequal results rather than dismissing either effect.
  6. Access needs and threats change, so protection needs continuing checks · Protection requires maintenance. Changing access needs and threats are reasons to review permissions, maintain security and check for misuse.
  7. False · False. In this high-risk case, with no applicable exception, affected people must also be informed. Telling the regulator does not replace that notification.
  8. An unequal outcome needs investigation; its cause is not established · The tests establish unequal outcomes for comparable urgency. They do not establish the cause or harmful intent. The outcome still needs investigation.
Worksheet · LightMySky