Civil Liberties

Civil Liberties

Civil Liberties are the basic rights of the human race; it includes the freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freed from arbitrary arrest and so on. With the increasing domination of the internet, acts have had to be enforced to protect the rights that we are entitled to. With the internet becoming a bigger part of businesses etc it is essential that acts are put in place to protect and monitor data they withhold.

Data

Data is stored online in every company about every customer and everyone who works for them. This information should be kept private and people should have confidence in who has their data. Data subjects have rights, they have the right to refuse any data on them being stored in a corporation or firm if it will cause them damage or distress. Data subjects also have the right to refuse to allow processing for direct marketing i.e. junk mail. Data subjects also have the right see what data is being held about them if they ask the data user, and can also change the data if they know it is wrong. If the data held about them is wrong they can also to the data commission if they think the rules have been broken. If they have proven that the data on them is wrong they can claim compensation that has been caused by the data controller.

Data Protection Act

Data Protection Act has was put in place in 1998; it sets out to protect the privacy of personal information. However the act only covers personal information about living individuals, not the information of businesses. The act covers data stored on computers or in a paper-based filing system. It allows you to see what data is being held by you, the act is run by the Information Commissioner’s office.

Any organisation holding data has to have a data controller, they make sure that the act is enforced. The data controller has to notify the Information Commissioner on several things: What data they want to store, what they want to us the data for, how long they will keep the data and finally who they might pass it on to. These are points that are often the starting points of an offense. An organisation holding data also has to agree to follow the eight Data Protection principles (http://dataprotectionact.org/1.html).

However there are exemptions to the act. When the national security is at stake you cannot demand to see your data and if you are under police investigation you are not allowed to see the data being used as evidence etc. Another example is examination results which are not allowed to be seen by anyone before the publication of the exam board.

Surveillance Society

We are living in what many people call the surveillance society; many people think that there is too much CCTV. The UK has the most amount of CCTV in the world, to put this into perspective there are 8 cities in the UK that have more CCTV cameras than Paris. There is a lot of debate as to whether having a lot of CCTV cameras is a good thing. Many people like CCTV’s because of the security that they give us as many people have them on their houses etc. CCTV cameras are nearly everywhere now, they are in schools, at work and even in toilets. CCTV allows us to monitor and keep confidence and security in business and schools. However there is a cause for concern, CCTV does not come under the data protection act so a person can put a camera wherever they like, which can mean the power and security can be abused and used for the wrong reasons.

Other Aspects

Innocent people’s civil liberties can be damaged, to catch criminals we have to make data accessible; however this means that the innocent’s data is also accessible. Some of our data is also in the public domain this is why we get things like junk mail, companies will buy peoples addresses and this makes our data even more accessible and public. There are many things that people should keep to themselves and never give out over the internet for example your date of birth, card details etc. Many people have had found false data about them on the internet, this has become a great problem but can be prevented. People need to be more aware of the rights that they actually have on the online world. Our civil liberties are going to be more and more under threat as we are all data and they older we get the more data we have on us.

My opinion on Civil Liberties

Personally I think that it is important to make sure that any data anyone has about you is kept in confidence. I think that it’s also important that people who their rights and enforce them wherever they may need to do so, whilst also limiting the amount of data that they proved to others. I also think that having lots of CCTV cameras is important,  it’s an easy way to provide hard evidence and makes me feel a lot safer when I see a camera because I feel in a way that I am not alone and that I am being protected in a sense by just being video recorded. 

Crime and Crime Prevention

Crime and Crime Prevention

IT has had a great impact on the Crime and Crime Prevention around the world. The use of IT to prevent crime has made many urban areas safer and has made crime easier to target for the police force. However it has presented many problems, as IT has giving us the ability to assist in solving crime but has also fuelled the ability to commit crimes.

 

Crime Prevention

With the aid of IT many crimes have been quickly solved. It has given us the ability to assist in solving crimes, technology has advanced so much that we are able to track down criminals quickly and provide hard evidence with the help of IT. A few examples of how IT has assisted crime prevention below.

Forensics

The first example is finger print scanning which has meant that there has been a great leap in identifying criminals and preventing them from travelling abroad etc. Although finger print identification has been around for a long time it has not provided as much information as it does now. After the persons finger print has been

scanned all of their data now appears, any previous criminal records or even where they have been in the world is now available due to the advances in finger print technology.

Another advance in IT that has changed crime prevention is face recognition and E-fit, this type of IT has helped to track down criminals with the recognition of their faces globally. Police around the world have been able to quickly find and identify criminals wherever they may be. E-fit has meant that after a person has been missing for a long time they are able to make a representation of what they predict the person may look like after so many years. This has helped find people as the images have been presented to the public globally and the E-fit images have been a true representation of what the missing person looks like. This has helped the police track down and pick out exactly where the missing person may be, or even to keep people aware of the people around them and be able to identify the missing person.

 

Crime Prevention on the road

IT has helped keep a limit on the crimes committed on the road, firstly we now have cameras on motorways and in urban areas; some even have cameras in their own cars. The cameras have allowed police to quickly identify those committing a criminal offense on the road, they are able to quickly identify the number plate and track down any records that there may be on the car or car owner. Where there are a lot of car accidents cameras are put in place to identify who are the innocent and have made court cases provide harder evidence to help the innocent and prosecute the guilty. In urban areas as well it has prevented a lot of people being able to get away with car accidents as they are identified on the cameras and can be found easily.

Cameras have also become popular to be put in a person’s own car, as video footage provides hard evidence when an accident may occur and stops people trying to falsely accuse a driver of causing an accident.

 

Police also now carry breathalysers on them to prevent drunk drivers from being able to stay on the road and it has also prevented a lot of accidents that may have been caused by a drunk driver. The police officers can easily tell the driver to take a 60 second test and are quickly able to detect drunk drivers. Police officers can also quickly identify drivers which are speeding by having radar guns which can measure how fast a driver is going and they are able to quickly identify and catch the drivers. Another advance that has helped with stopping drivers speeding is speed cameras which have made an increasing presence over the UK in the past few years, they measure the speed of every driver that goes past and if the driver is exceeding the limits they take a picture of the offender number plate and send them a fine.

 

Prevention of Theft

IT has also helped prevent theft in shops. Most retail shops now have security tags on their items which can only be de tagged with the aid of a really strong magnet. If a person tries to leave the shop with the security tag still on alarms will go off and the security of the precinct will be alerted of an alleged robbery. To also assist in finding who the person was, most shops also have security cameras at the tills, at the entry and exit also in the changing rooms which is where most robberies take place.

 

Other Aspects of IT and Crime Prevention

 

IT has also assisted in preventing crime with things such as databases which hold information on every criminal in the UK and worldwide, they are able to instantly find out any information other need on a person’s previous records if any.  Police are now also able to track calls that are being made, this has helped in prevent drug trafficking and tracking the calls of people who may be planning terrorist attacks. They are easily able to find the persons location and track their every move through their mobile phones.

 

Police are now able to keep criminals under their surveillance without them being in the prison itself. They have created a tagging system; this allows the police to track the criminal without actually being with them or being able to see them. They can make sure that the criminal is behaving and that they are where they should be at certain times.

 

The prevention of hacking and pretence has been a more recent advance. Software has been put in place to prevent and stop people form be able to hack into secret informational and form bugging an important system. Pretence has also been restricted as on many websites now to order something you have to prove ht you are human.

 

Crime instigated by IT

Although many crimes are now prevented with the aid of IT, many crimes have been instigated by IT. IT has caused great problems and has been the start of new, clever and more developed types of crimes which are becoming progressively bigger and harder to prevent.  IT has created more opportunity for crime to be committed.

 

Firstly hacking has become a huge problem, as it is done over the internet it is hard for the police to track down and find the culprit. Hacking can be done instantly and have a huge impact, they can often not be prevented of even reversed. An example of this is when Playstation was hacked. A hacker was able to obtain the personal information of all the users on the Playstation network. This hack was not able to be reversed and many had to make new accounts, Sony also had to invest in more hacking prevention software and employ technicians.

 

Another crime instigated by IT is Cyber bullying, with people being able to hide behind their online identities many have been victims of mental and verbal abuse over the internet. Social media has become a fuel to bullying and hate towards others. Young people have even taken their own lives due to the constant abuse they receive over the internet.

 

IT has also allowed many to steal data that is not theirs. They are able to get onto systems that they do not own and take information that is not rightly theirs. This has allowed many to be a victims of fraud and many have lost a lot of money or information that should be kept secret or out of the public eye.

 

IT has also lead to a lot of piracy; people are able to copy downloadable music or films going and sell them on to other people illegally. Many forget that when they buy music or a film it is not theirs to sell on, if they do so they are committing a crime. However it is very hard to prevent this as it is easily done and cannot be easily tracked. This also leads me onto my next point which is illegal downloads, it I very easy for a person to now go onto the internet and download an MP3 file or even a film without anyone knowing. Websites have been made for the purpose of allowing people to illegally download things without paying any money.

 

A more common crime is phishing; many people are scammed as they believe that the email that has been sent to them is a true message from a company that they have a connection with i.e. the bank, insurance etc. The Emails are cleverly designed and look exactly like who the person perceives them to be, many people will give away personal and private information over an email which can be use d to get into their bank accounts.

 

My own experience

 

My family has experienced several problems instigated by IT. Firstly my parents were victims of phishing when they received an email form a company claiming to be their insurance company, they were requesting money and other things. My parents were a little suspicious but the link to the website and the layout of the Email was a replica of that of the real one. However to be sure they rang their insurance company and they said that they and never sent out an E-mail requesting money, they also mentioned that many other people had experienced the same thing and that they were trying to find out who the culprit was. Another example is when a member of my family had ordered tickets for a concert off of a website, when the tickets arrived they looked exactly how they should have, however when they arrived at the venue the organisers told them that the tickets were not valid and they were sent home.

In my household we do have a few ways of preventing crime by using IT., for example all of our laptops and computers have virus protection on them i.e. Norton. We also have cameras in certain places around the house, when we go on holiday my parents like to know that everything was safe when we were away.