IT and the Law.

 Impacts of IT and the Law 

 

Why are laws needed in IT? 

Laws are needed within IT in order to protect people’s data, to protect them physically and mentally and to protect their work or creations. This is important as years go by more and more people or organisations switch to online for convenience, this is because it is easier to store peoples data online or to contact people online etc.  



 

Computer Misuse Act 1990 

Principles: 

 Unauthorized Access to Computer Material 

Committing or Facilitating Further Offenses 

Intent to Impair the Operation of a Computer 

Unauthorized Acts Causing Serious Damage 

Making, Supplying or Obtaining Articles for Use in Other Offenses 

Reference: Computer Misuse Act Offenses 

 


The Computer Misuse Act 1990 is UK legislation that makes it punishable by the law to access or modify computer systems without authorisation. Adding on to that, the Computer Misuse Act also forbids unauthorised access  to personal data by hacking and/or damaging a computer system which does not belong to a person for malicious purposes. The Computer Misuse Act is over 30 years old, this means that throughout the years its been modified and updated to more recent laws. Computer Misuse Act 1990 is necessary in order to protect people against malicious attacks such as cyberattacks which put their data in danger or their personal computer system. This means no one is allowed to use somebody else’s computer system with the intent to commit crimes such as; fraud, cyberattack and steal personal information about said person. Furthermore, breaking this law can lead to large fines or imprisonment, with the most serious offenses being up to 10 years in prison or more especially if it affects national systems or any critical information is stolen or hacked. This act , like the others, promotes ethical use of computers by teaching people the legal boundaries of computers and technology while also teaching them the importance of online security 

 

Data Protection Act 2018 

Principles:  

Lawfulness, fairness and transparency 

Purpose limitation 

Data minimisation 

Accuracy 

Storage limitation 

Integrity and confidentiality (security) 

Accountability principle  

References: Data Protection Act 2018 (GDPR)  



 

The Data Protection Act 2018 (GDPR) is a legislation that covers things such as Personal Data, Processing and Data Controllers. Organisations or data holders must ensure that their data is kept lawfully, fairly and transparently. This is done so that people are aware of their data being stored and used and not done without their consent. This also makes sure that people’s data isn’t being used in an unlawful way. Furthermore, the GDPR protects us by making organisations and companies who collect data to only collect specific data, and they must have a purpose so they can’t collect your data for no good reason. Continuing on, the GDPR also gives people the right to access their data, correct it, delete it, restrict how its used and move it. This is a good thing as previous to 2018, companies and organisations didn’t have to tell you how your data is used and they didn’t ask for consent. With the updated version of the GDPR, it forces companies to ask for consent to collect your data, e.g. Websites asking to allow cookies. GDPR has been a very important act that has been introduced into our society as it allows us to track how, where and what our information is online as we further shift into the online technology and we store more and more information online or using technology. 

 

Copyright, Designs & Patents Act (1988) 

Principles:  

Automatic Protection 

Duration 

Public Domain 

Exceptions 

Permission Required 

Reference: Copyright, Designs & Patents Act (1988) 

 


The Copyright, Designs & Patents Act (1988) was introduced to protect people’s original work from being stolen or reused as original without the creators permission. This act gives creators of said inventions or work, power/legal rights over how their work is used or sold. These include things such as; designs, software, photography, films, art, music and books. This law ensures that whenever a creator makes something such as the things stated above,  the law instantly covers their work as soon as the work is created. In the case of a creator’s work being stolen and used without their permission, they can take legal action against the person and/or people who took their creation and used it and said creator can claim compensation or damages In the court of law if their work is stolen or used unfairly. Like all the others this act is also a very very important law as it rewards creators and protects their creations and ideas and punishes people who steal or use others work unfairly or as their own for their benefit or financial profit. Just as seen in this ‘essay’, I’ve referenced work that I have used in this to prevent plagiarism. The work that I have typed about is covered by the Copyright, Designs &  Patents Act.

Comments

  1. salehaOctober 10, 2025 at 7:19 AM

    this has made me understand the laws of IT and the importance of them.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Negative Impacts of IT.

Image
  Negative Impacts of IT   Starting off with the first negative impact of IT is hacking. Hacking, by definition is gaining unauthorised access to someone’s computer system with malicious intent /  to commit illegal activities such as stealing their personal info or using their hacked computer to commit crimes. People may hack someone in order to gain  access to their computer for several reasons, some of these may include to; steal their personal information, commit crimes using their computer system or for financial gain .    An example of hacking can be one of the biggest hacks in history the Yahoo Data Breaches (2013-2014). This data breach was one of the biggest in the history of humanity but for one main reason, it was the giant corporation of emails and over three billion accounts were hacked along with full names, email addresses and phone numbers. This breach of security was done by the ‘manipulation’ of ‘cookies ’ ,which is the data any we...
Read more

Impacts IT has had on communities and society.

Image
Impacts IT has had on Communities and Society   IT has had various different types of impacts on communities and society, both positive and negative, even still, IT has had a real significant impact on us and our everyday life. One of these impacts being on employment, employment within the industry has changed massively since the continuous development of IT. There has been an increase in employment within the IT industry as it progressively develops but also has had a negative impact on other jobs that machines and technology took over to automate and produce faster than humans can in factories. IT has also allowed us to connect with others globally and allowed us to keep in contact with our loved ones that may be living on the other side of the world or friends that left for work, education or even travel. Although technology can be a good thing, sometimes it can be in the wrong hands and can be used maliciously to cause harm, fraud, cyber attacks ect. With this in mind we...
Read more