Edexcel GCSE Computer Science Topic 5 Issues and impact: environmental, ethical and legal data, AI ethics, intellectual property and cybersecurity

What Topic 5 actually demands

Issues and impact is the topic on how computing affects people, society and the environment. You must explain the environmental costs of digital devices, the ethical and legal issues around personal data and around artificial intelligence, how intellectual property is protected, and the cybersecurity threats and defences. This topic often carries the extended "discuss" questions in Paper 1, which reward balanced, developed argument.

This guide ties together the four dot-point pages for Topic 5.

Environmental impact

Digital devices have environmental costs across their life cycle: manufacture (energy, water and finite materials, including mined rare-earth metals), energy consumption in use (devices and data centres, much from fossil fuels), a short replacement cycle (devices discarded every few years even when working), and disposal (e-waste containing toxic materials, reducible by recycling). A balanced answer weighs these against the benefits (less travel and paper).

Personal data and AI ethics

Collecting personal data raises privacy, ownership, consent and misuse issues, governed legally by data protection law (fair and lawful collection, stated purpose only, kept secure, individual rights). Artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics add issues of safety, accountability, algorithmic bias and legal liability, because these systems make decisions affecting people, and bias from unrepresentative training data can be hidden and unfair.

Intellectual property and cybersecurity

Intellectual property is protected by copyright (automatic, original works), patents (new inventions), trademarks (brands) and licensing (agreements on use). Cybersecurity threats are malware (viruses, worms, Trojans, ransomware, key loggers) and social engineering (tricking people, such as phishing), often exploiting unpatched software. Protection methods are anti-malware, encryption, acceptable use policies (and training) and backup and recovery.

Check your knowledge

A mix of recall and applied questions covering Topic 5. Attempt them, then check against the solutions.

1. State one environmental issue caused by manufacturing digital devices. (1 mark)
2. State why a short replacement cycle is an environmental problem. (1 mark)
3. State what informed consent means. (1 mark)
4. State one requirement of data protection law. (1 mark)
5. State what algorithmic bias is. (1 mark)
6. State which intellectual property protection automatically covers original software. (1 mark)
7. State the difference between a virus and a worm. (2 marks)
8. State one method of protecting data so it is unreadable if stolen. (1 mark)