Tutorial 2 – Legal, Ethical or data protection issue – you decide

1.

Georgie was 12 when she began using chat rooms. She did it because her friends did and
it seemed a way to have fun. It occurred to her that it might be a good way to meet a
date.

“ I thought when I was on the Internet, nobody could see what I looked like. All my
friends had boyfriends and I felt left out. I wanted someone to talk about and show off”

And find someone she did. The person Georgie met online met online said that he was
15, then revised it to 18 when they arranged to meet at a local cinema. As it turned out,
he was 47, and known to the police as a petty crook. Fortunately for Georgie her mother
had insisted on going along.

(Extract from and article by Sally Kinnes in ‘Doors’, Sunday Times, 19 November 2008)

Comment on the following remarks

Basically it’s the parents fault 99% of the time chat rooms give people a positive
experience, basically it’s up to parents to supervise their kids on the internet, or use some
of the blocking software available. It’s like blaming a car manufacturer because some 10
year old got his parents car keys ‘borrowed’ his parent’s car and had an accident. Put
‘em all in the army that’s what I say.

(Major Hendricks-Paterson – Daily mail reader’s letters)

Basically chat rooms should be banned and anyone using them should be put on the sex
offenders register, before they’re strung up. No one under 18 should be able to use the
Internet they should all read the Sun instead to instill some family values into them.

Darren Smith – Sun Readers letters

In response to the chat room issue MSN stopped free access to chat rooms, to prevent
their abuse. However cynics pointed out that you could still use chatrooms if you paid
for them, so the problem hadn’t gone away. On top of this MSN were making extra
money as well. Besides you could still get into free chatrooms if you managed to get
someone in America to register you over there.

Do you think this will help? Why do you think MSN’s policy is different in America,
how do you think they justify this?

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2.
Discuss the following in terms of

 Legal/Data Protection problem

 Ethical behavior

The legal requirements include the need for personal data to be processed fairly
and lawfully, to be accurate and up-to-date, to have measures in place against
accidental loss or destruction and for personal data only to be transferred to
countries with adequate levels of data protection in place.

Ethical behavior is characterized by honesty, fairness and equity in interpersonal,

professional and academic relationships and in research and scholarly activities.
Ethical behavior respects the dignity, diversity and rights of individuals and
groups of people

You go to a doctors for treatment for a certain type of cancer, three weeks later your wife
is deluged with phone calls telling her about miracle cancer cures, and you haven’t told
her yet. What are the legal, ethical and data protection issues if the following happened.

a. The doctor simply sold a list of 1000 patients for £500 to anyone who is prepared
to pay for it. (Data should be kept secured), unethical, doctor has the duty to
keep the data secured even without the data protection act
b. The doctor passed the details to someone claiming to be doing research on the
subject, it turns out they were lying. This is similar to question a (The doctor is
not ethical as he shared the patient’s information without their consent)
c. A folder was left on a bus. Silly mistake that should be avoided(Data should be
kept secured as people can steal your information easily)
d. The password was 1234 and someone hacked onto the Intranet and stole the
details (This is a legal and data protection issue as the hacker obtained the
information in an unethical way. The password should be encrypted to avoid
getting hacked easily)
e. An extremely sophisticated hacking tool was used to steal the names and
addresses the same tool was also successful in breaking into the top-secret area of
the ministry of defense. (This is not legal and against the data protection act as
they obtain information in an unethical way and they can be punished
legally)

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3.
A man buys a cheap watch from ‘The Sport’ newspaper (when placed next to ‘The Sport’
‘The Sun’ looks like a quality newspaper). He forgets to tick the box ‘don’t pass my
details onto carefully selected 3rd parties. Consequently he receives hundreds of offers
for various types of pornography over the next month or so.

4.
A business selling weight reducing plastic surgery joins a weight loss chat room to try to
find potential clients.

5.
An employer posing as a student rings up the University of Greenwich and says he hasn’t
received his results and gives the student number of the student. The operator checks and
finds that a letter has apparently being sent. The operator agrees to send the results to his
hotmail account. The hotmail account turns out to be the employers account, he finds out
the student has lied about not having any re-sits and sacks the student.

6.
Due to a change in the economy it becomes very profitable to lend people as much
money as possible. The company takes out a full page advert in the Sun and tells its
operatives to ‘fast-track’ the credit worthiness checks.

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