Impacts of Computing
Impacts of Computing
This domain tests the social, legal, and ethical footprint of computing: privacy and data protection, intellectual property and licensing, accessibility, algorithmic bias, and safe digital citizenship. Items are scenario-based, so identify the stakeholder and the specific obligation before choosing.
Core rules
- Privacy and consent: FERPA protects education records; COPPA limits collection of data from children under 13; HIPAA covers health information. Publicly visible data is not automatically free to reuse.
- Intellectual property: copyright protects original expression, not ideas; open-source licenses (MIT, GPL) grant specific rights with conditions; fair use is a four-factor balancing test, not a blanket permission.
- Accessibility: WCAG principles are perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust; captions, alt text, and keyboard navigation are common requirements.
- Bias: a model reflects its training data and design choices; disparate impact can occur without intent.
Worked example
A district proposes facial recognition at school entrances. Identify the data (biometric templates of students and visitors), the legal exposure (FERPA, state biometric-privacy laws, parental consent), the ethical risks (false matches, chilling effects, disproportionate error rates), and the security risk of a breach. Then weigh alternatives such as staffed check-in. The strongest answer names the specific harm and the specific safeguard rather than saying 'it is unethical'.
Traps
Treating legality and ethics as identical; assuming a public post is license-free; ignoring accessibility when evaluating a tool; and accepting an algorithm's output as neutral because it is objective.