To prevent depravity and corruption in the media.
Obscene Publications Act
Summarise the act:
What date was it originally published?
Obscene Publications Act was originally published in 1959
When was it extended/amended?
1964 was when it was extended / amended
When is an article (media product) deemed to be ‘obscene’?
What is the act for?
“An Act to amend the law relating to the publication of obscene matter; to provide for the protection of literature; and to strengthen the law concerning pornography.” The obscene publications act is design to prevent inappropriate articles from reaching the market, to penalise purveyors of obscene material. This can range from ofenses such as extreme pornography, Idecent photograpghs of children, video recordings act 1984 and 210 alson known as VRA, indecent displays, importation of indecent and obscene material and children and young persons ( harmful publication) act 1955.
Which body regulates and censors obscene publications?
The body that regulates and censors obscene publications are companies such as bfc which provide information for the appropriate age for the gameplay.
Name three interactive media products that the act applies to.
Find an example of a video game which has been deemed to breach the act.
Manhunt 2
What game is it (add a screenshot)?
What event brought the game to court?
The murder of a 14-year-old boy
What specific content was deemed obscene or corrupting?
The specific content was deemed obscene or corrupting was the unrelenting focus on stalking and brutal slaying.
What happened to the creator?
The company has six weeks to submit an appeal.
How was it in breach of the act?
“British censors have banned a violent video game from the UK for the first time in a decade.”
Computer Misuse Act
Summarise the act:
What date was it originally published?
The computer misuse act was originally published in August 1990
What is the act for?
Computer misuse act is an act of the parliament of the united kingdom which is responsible for securing computer material against unauthorised access or modification, basically its the misuse of a computer, which is defined by unauthorised access to content such as emails,
Summarise the offenses and the punishments.
Provide 3 situations that would be deemed illegal.
- Giving false information
- Stealing bank details
- Hacking passwords
Find a recent case where someone has been in breach of the Act.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-10869847
website link above, for more information.
A recent case where someone has been in breach of the Computer misuse act is “Online scam ‘breached security of 20,000 bank accounts’, The result to this was that six people were arrested over a scam which police believed compromised the security of more than 20,000 bank accounts and credit cards. Fake websites and spam e mails were used throughout to gain access to personal details such as bank accounts and credit cards. “Police said the gang had tried to steal £1.14m from 10,000 online bank accounts, successfully obtaining £358,0″ ” “A great deal of personal information was compromised and cleverly exploited for substantial profit,” said Det Insp Colin Wetherill.”
What is ‘phishing’?
Phishing is the act of attempting to fraudulent practice of sending emails, to indue individuals to reveal personal information, examples such as passwords and credit card numbers
What is a computer virus?
A computer virus is a piece of code which is capable of dangerous things such as copying itself and typically has a detrimental effect, for example destroying data, this runs against your wishes.
Data Protection Act
Why is this relevant to IM producers and distributors?
If I create an app, game or website and i’m taking peoples bank details, I must know their rights. I have to know the correct way of holding their records, its very important as an interactive media distributor.
Summarise the act:
What date was it originally published?
The data protection act was originally published in 1998
Why is it needed and what are the concerns?
Nowadays a good majority of us use computers right? businesses, organisations and governments also use computers to store information about their customers, clients and staff in a database, some of this information could be names, addresses, contact information, employment history, medical conditions, convictions and credit history. Concerns of this could be who could access this information?, how accurate was the information?, Could it be easily copied?, Was it possible to store information about a person without the individual’s knowledge or permission? or even Was a record kept of any changes made to the information, all these questions are crucial as personal information could be misused or even get into the wrong hands.
How does it work?
The data protection act works by
- Setting up rules that people have to follow
- Having an information commissioner to enforce the rules
Who enforces it?
The Information Commissioner is the person who enforce the Act.
What do you have to register with the Information Controller?
If you are an individual or a company who needs to store information they must apply to register with the information commissioner, there are six specific stepts for each entry in the register contains:
- The data controller’s name and address.
- A description of the information to be stored.
- What they are going to use the information for.
- Whether the data controller plans to pass on the information to other people or organisations.
- Whether the data controller will transfer the information outside the UK.
- Details of how the data controller will keep the information safe and secure.
What are the 8 principles of Data Protection?
- It must be collected and used fairly and inside the law.
- It must only be held and used for the reasons given to the Information Commissioner.
- It can only be used for those registered purposes and only be disclosed to those people mentioned in the register entry. You cannot give it away or sell it unless you said you would to begin with.
- The information held must be adequate, relevant and not excessive when compared with the purpose stated in the register. So you must have enough detail but not too much for the job that you are doing with the data.
- It must be accurate and be kept up to date. There is a duty to keep it up to date, for example to change an address when people move.
- It must not be kept longer than is necessary for the registered purpose. It is alright to keep information for certain lengths of time but not indefinitely. This rule means that it would be wrong to keep information about past customers longer than a few years at most.
- The information must be kept safe and secure. This includes keeping the information backed up and away from any unauthorised access. It would be wrong to leave personal data open to be viewed by just anyone.
- The files may not be transferred outside of the European Economic Area (that’s the EU plus some small European countries) unless the country that the data is being sent to has a suitable data protection law. This part of theDPA has led to some countries passing similar laws to allow computer data centres to be located in their area.
(information taken from BBC BITESIZE- link :http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/ict/legal/0dataprotectionactrev5.shtml)
What are ‘data subjects’ and what are their rights?
Data subjects are people whose personal information/data is stored, this is called data subjects. There are 7 rights which include:
- A right of subject access
- A right of correction
- A right to prevent distress
- A right to prevent direct marketing
- A right to prevent automatic decisions
- A right of complaint to the information commissioner
- A right to compensation
What is deemed as ‘sensitive personal data’?
- Racial or ethnic origin
- Political opinions
- Religious beliefs
- Member of trade union
- Physical or mental health
- Sexual life
Are there any exemptions?
There are some exemptions and some partial exemptions where personal data is not covered by the 199, which then means that the people storing data. An example of complete exemption such as personal data held for domestic purpose, e.g list of friends names, birthdays and addresses, an example of partial exemption is a taxman or police d not have to disclose information held or processed to prevent crime or taxation fraud.
Find a recent case where someone has been in breach of the Act.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/aug/09/pupil-hacked-hampshire-school-website
The link is above for further information
“School hacked by pupil broke data protection act”
“Bay House school censured for password duplication that allowed 15-year-old to expose details of 20,000 people”
This recent breach is about a 15 year old unnamed pupil who broke into Bays House’s private database in March after he had obtained the password from a member of staff. The pupil had exposed the names, addresses, photographs and medical information of 7,600 past and present pupils, plus confidential details on about 13,000 adults. The unnamed 15 year old did not break the data protection act but misused the password, likewise the member of staff who gave the pupil the password therefore broke the data protection act. The 15 year old teenager will not face any charges or fines but probably will have some sort of note on his record, which then perhaps will be wiped at the age of 18.
You create online games and you sell them. What information and details do you need from customers and how does this Act apply to you?
The information and details I need from customers are:
- Names
- Address
- Sort Code number
- Bank number
- Email Address
- Date of birth
- Contact information
- Password
- Username
- Bank information
The reasons for me to have these details are to insure that my game is being used by an appropriate age group, for example if my game was rated 18+ online, date of birth information will insure that the game is being played by its appropriate age group.Email address is a good way of sending promotions and keeping in contact with the customer, e.g If they wanted to change their password, sending a link to change this information, will ensure that the company is sending it to the correct individual. Name information is a good way to personalise their user name, but also if i am selling it to the buyer a name is a good way to identify the buyer. Bank information is vital, you need to ensure that the persons information is kept safe and isn’t exploited to others.
to ensure this is safe I need to register the information and tell the exact information i am keeping about people and how.
Ttwarna Malika 