Legislation

Computer misuse act 1990 (focus area)

Data protection act 2018 (focus area)

Software licences (focus area)

Data must be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner

Personal data must be stored and protected.

Data can only be collected for legitimate reasons

Use and purpose of having the data

Data has to be kept securely

This legislation has been designed to
keep up with technology

It is illegal to

Make any unauthorised access to data…

… with the intent to commit other offences

… with the intent to modify data, e.g. viruses

Commonly mis-conceptualised as being hacking but is not because some hacking can be legal with permission granted

Examples are fraud, unauthorised work, planting of viruses, data theft, deliberate data destruction.

Algorithms, computer programs and
databases are covered under this act

Examples include: theft by a business of the methods of ideas of other ICT businesses. Software piracy, using software without correct licencing and the use of ICT to copy or download files such as music,video and images to avoid paying for them.

It is illegal to copy,modify or distribute images, music, video or intellectual property without permission from the owner.

Paid for licences that is per person or computer, also supported by developers

Users have no access to the source code

Users cannot modify the software. Protected by the Copyright designs and patents Act

Tested by developers prior to release.

Propriatory

Open source

Users can modify and distribute the software

Can be installed on any number of computers

Support is provided by the community in forums

Users have access to open source code

May not be fully tested so could have lots of bugs and requires the user to test for them.

Software licences Misconceptions

Open source software is not always free, it can be redistributed for free

No such thing as closed source, it is proprietary software