E-Folio

Social and ethical issues relating to the use of technology

Inappropriate usage of technology:

The growing advancements in technology as well as being good because we now have faster Internet connection speeds and faster personal computers and there is always something new coming out, have the negative side to them. The inappropriate usage of technology is a growing concern. People use the Internet to steal, copy, and falsify information; new technology has been created to run weaponry to aid in modern warfare.

Identity Theft:

Identity theft is becoming more and more prominent throughout the world with the use of the Internet. When trying to buy things over the Internet, if you use a website that is fraudulent and untruthful, when putting your bank details in, they take the details, and make them their own. When putting information about yourself on the Internet, you create a digital footprint. This footprint can be in the form of a subscription to a website, an email address, or a social networking site account. Really anything that has information about you personally. Using these details, people create false identities using the names and date of birth of the person, then make that identity their own.

Privacy as an issue, in regards to the database

My database has stored on it names of students knowledge of them being 18 or under 18 and it has flight choices, accommodation choices and dates of arrival.

Firstly, I had to get their approval that said I could use their details as long as they remained private. Now, my database has personal information that I have to use properly and to the extent that I agreed with the person on. If someone outside were able to have access to the database, they would be able to gain knowledge of where this person was going to be, their name, and a rough guess of how old they are. An example, would be if there were people that didn’t like Anthony a great deal, and wanted to “catch up” with him at Schoolies, if they got hold of the information in this database, they would know where he was going to be and when he was going to be there, putting Anthony into a life threatening situation.

Another example would be if someone was able to look at the database, and they saw Justin’s details, they could easily go to the accommodation he was staying at, and check in as Justin instead of Justin checking in himself.