What do these topics cover?

Two distinct strands. The consequences strand covers the moral, ethical, legal and cultural issues raised by computing, the relevant UK legislation (Data Protection Act and UK GDPR, Computer Misuse Act, Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, RIPA), privacy and data protection, and the responsibilities of computer professionals. The functional programming strand covers the functional paradigm, first-class functions, application, partial application and composition, and the higher-order functions map, filter and reduce.

What is the difference between a legal and an ethical issue?

A legal issue concerns what the law allows or forbids; an ethical issue concerns what is morally right and is often set out in professional codes of conduct. The two are separate: an action can be legal but still unethical, or ethical but not specifically covered by law. A good exam answer treats them distinctly and weighs both sides.

Which UK law covers unauthorised access to a computer?

The Computer Misuse Act makes unauthorised access to computer systems, unauthorised access with intent to commit further offences, unauthorised modification of data, and making or supplying malware criminal offences. Handling personal data is covered by the Data Protection Act and UK GDPR, and copying software or media is covered by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.

What is functional programming?

Functional programming builds programs from pure functions that take inputs and return outputs without changing external state, avoiding side effects. This makes programs easier to test, reason about and run in parallel. Functions are first-class objects: they can be passed as arguments, returned from functions and stored in variables, which enables composition and higher-order functions.

What do map, filter and reduce do?

These are higher-order functions that take a function as an argument. Map applies a given function to every element of a list and returns a new list. Filter returns a new list of only the elements that satisfy a condition. Reduce (fold) combines all the elements into a single value using a function and a starting value, for example summing a list.

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AQA A-Level Computer Science consequences of computing and functional programming: ethics, legislation and the functional paradigm

A deep-dive AQA A-Level Computer Science guide to the consequences of computing and functional programming. Covers the moral, ethical, legal and cultural issues raised by computing and the relevant UK legislation, and the functional programming paradigm including first-class functions, composition, and map, filter and reduce.

Generated by Claude Opus 4.816 min read4.12Updated 2026-06-02

Reviewed by: AI editorial process; not yet individually human-reviewed

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What these topics actually demand
The consequences of computing
The functional programming paradigm
Check your knowledge

What these topics actually demand

This pairing covers two very different strands AQA examines in the second year: the consequences of computing for individuals and society, and the functional programming paradigm. The first rewards balanced, well-evidenced argument; the second rewards precise understanding of pure functions and higher-order functions.

The consequences of computing

Computing raises moral, ethical, legal and cultural issues, and they must be considered separately because an action can be legal yet unethical. Key concerns are privacy and surveillance, misuse of personal data, the digital divide, automation and employment, algorithmic bias and environmental impact.

You must reference the relevant UK legislation: the Data Protection Act / UK GDPR (personal data), the Computer Misuse Act (unauthorised access and malware), the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (intellectual property), and RIPA (lawful interception). Computer professionals have a duty to act ethically, follow a code of conduct, and protect users' data and safety.

The functional programming paradigm

Functional programming treats computation as the evaluation of pure functions with no side effects, which makes code easier to reason about and parallelise. Functions are first-class objects: passed as arguments, returned, and stored in variables. Partial application fixes some arguments to make a new function; composition chains the output of one function into another.

The key higher-order functions are map (apply a function to every element), filter (keep elements matching a condition) and reduce or fold (combine elements into a single value).

Check your knowledge

State which UK law makes unauthorised access to a computer system an offence. (1 mark)
Explain the difference between a legal and an ethical issue. (2 marks)
State one responsibility of a computer professional. (1 mark)
State which law protects personal data. (1 mark)
State what it means for a function to be a first-class object. (2 marks)
State what a pure function is. (2 marks)
State what the map function does. (1 mark)
State what the reduce (fold) function does. (1 mark)

Solutions

Q1: The Computer Misuse Act.
Q2: A legal issue concerns what the law allows or forbids; an ethical issue concerns what is morally right, and an action can be legal yet still unethical.
Q3: Any one of: acting ethically, following a professional code of conduct, being honest about a system's limitations, protecting users' data and safety, or considering the wider impact of the systems they build.
Q4: The Data Protection Act (and UK GDPR).
Q5: It can be passed as an argument, returned from a function, and stored in a variable, just like any other value.
Q6: A function that always returns the same output for the same input and has no side effects (it changes nothing outside itself).
Q7: It applies a given function to every element of a list, returning a new list.
Q8: It combines all the elements of a list into a single value using a given function and a starting value.

Sources & how we know this

AQA A-level Computer Science (7517) specification — AQA (2015)