The big idea: Rules are written for the technology that existed when they were written.
Something genuinely new does not break the old rules — it sits outside them, doing something nobody thought to allow or forbid.
Why guidelines must be revisited: "It was legal" and "it was right" stop matching when the technology changes.
A rule saying a photograph needs consent said nothing about a camera worn all day, because no such camera existed.
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Individual rights
- Can a person still choose not to take part?
- Can they find out what is held about them, and correct it?
- Is there a decision they can appeal against?
- Refusing often costs access to something essential
Privacy
- What is collected, and did anyone agree to it?
- Does it capture bystanders who never agreed at all?
- Consent for one purpose does not cover later ones
- Data collected now may be used in ways nobody has thought of yet
Equity
- Who can afford it, and who is left behind?
- Does it work as well for everyone, or mainly for the majority?
- A service that assumes a smartphone excludes those without one
- Benefits and harms rarely land on the same people
The fourth lens: society: Beyond the individual: what happens when everyone has it?
A camera is one thing; cameras everywhere change how people behave in public. That shift is a separate question from any single camera.
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Quantum computing
Would eventually break much of today's encryption, which protects banking, medical records and private messages.
Data stolen and stored today could be decrypted later — so the risk begins before the machines exist.
Augmented reality
Puts a camera and display permanently between a person and the world.
Everything the wearer sees can be recorded, and bystanders never consented. It can also alter what the wearer sees, which raises the question of who chooses that.
Virtual reality
Tracks where someone looks, how they move and how they react — data far more revealing than a browsing history.
It also makes simulated experience powerful enough that its effects on people, especially young ones, are a real question.
Pervasive AI
Decisions about jobs, loans, healthcare and policing increasingly involve a model.
Each one may be defensible; the accumulation is that large parts of a person's life are decided by systems they cannot see or question.
The pattern behind all four: Each one collects more, decides more, or reaches further than what the existing rules were written for.
That is why the guide asks for guidelines to be continually reassessed rather than written once.
How this is tested — you must apply a lens — rights, privacy, equity, society — to the specific technology. It comes up two ways:
Paper 1 Section A
- Discuss the ethics of a named technology, 4-6 marks
- Explain why guidelines must be reassessed
- Say who benefits and who is affected
Paper 1 Section B — case study
- Discuss the case study's wider implications
- Weigh its benefits against its social costs
The classic trap: Writing that a technology is "good and bad" in general terms. Name who is affected, how, and what would reduce it — a discussion is about specific people, not abstractions.
A city proposes issuing augmented-reality glasses to all its public transport staff, recording everything they see. Discuss the ethical implications.
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