Bridging Digital Divide

“Technology is only a powerful as it is accessible. Broader access brings education, information and a sense of community that can help combat AIDS, malnutrition, ignorance and neglect. The power of a connected and enlightened world community is just beginning”- Hector Ruiz, Chairman of the Board and President of AMD

Digital divide has been a common problem in today’s society and many organisations all over the world are now trying their best to stop digital divide. Bridging digital divide has now become one of the main topics all over the world; it has everyone talking about it. So how can we actually stop this? Surely it’s impossible as many countries have some other problems too? Should we not think about the bigger picture instead, like world peace?

In the UK alone, many have been trying on how to bridge digital divide. They’ve come up with many ideas like Race Online 2012. Race online 2012 main aim is “to make the UK the first nation in the world where everyone can use the web”. They also offer IT training and has negotiated a cheap internet packages to help people access the web.

http://raceonline2012.org/                                             

http://www.close-the-gap.org/ - this is another website that helps bridging digital divide.

 Ways to stop Digital Divide:

There are many and varieties of little ways on how to bridge digital divide. All little ways counts on helping, by just simply recycling your old technologies and then giving it to charities. I’m sure that many people has phones that they don’t even use anymore and therefore giving it to charities that help bridging digital divide would have a massive effect.

Another way of bridging digital divide is maybe by talking more about it publically. Let people know what’s going on so that they an idea on what to do and how to help. Or maybe even let students know about it, have a discussion about it at school so that younger people would know. By discussing more about this problem publicly, more people would take notice and maybe more people would then try and help.

Internet accessibility over the rural areas would help bridge digital divide.  As I said , rural and urban areas causes digital divide therefore by having an alternative internet access like satellite in rural areas , digital divide would be less.

What would happen if there is no digital divide?

I think that the world would be a better place. Each country’s economic state would improve and be equal. Access to Internet is now crucial and by having this, it’ll improve countries economic state as more jobs would be available. Also, in case of emergency if there are new technologies around it would be easy to call someone for help etc. Social life would be better and easier as you can then contact and be closed to anyone all over the world. This could also lead to everyone having better respect for each other and treating each other equally. If every one of us has equal amount of chances of having internet connection or technologies, the world would be a better place overall but as usual there will always be some negative about this...

Digital Divide Local

Digital divide isn’t just a problem worldwide; it is also a problem locally, in the UK specially.  In the UK today, fast and good internet connection and technologies is essential just like water and food. I think this is due to the fact that internet and technologies could do variety of things; it is the main source of information, there are many features and it is entertaining.  But there are still quite a lot of people with no internet connection at all and there are many reasons for this.

 One of the main reasons is economic state, money plays a big role. I don’t want to say that rich people get’s all the technologies they want and poor people doesn’t. I don’t think that’s how it works. I would say that people who have extra income could obviously spend their money for whatever they would like and for those whose income is just enough to live, they do not care about the latest technology to have all they want is to have a better life for them and their family and be alive.  That is the difference between the rich and poor for me.

UK is known for its beautiful and picturesque country side. But this is one of the reasons why digital divide occurs in the UK, they are afraid that by putting big buildings in the country side it’ll ruin its scenery and due to this most people in the country side do not have access to internet.

Most of the internet is used around the city areas as they are needed for work, schools and others. Internet and technologies are now crucial in everyday work life and student’s life.

This picture shows where most of broadband are connected. As you can see most of broadband are connected in the middle area of England this is normally cities, compared to the country side, it’s almost completely white which shows that there are less broadband connected.

“In the public sector, universities, schools and libraries are increasingly becoming reliant on electronic content and the richness of the internet.”— Digital Britain 2009

Education in England is highly praised and recognised all over the world. ICT plays a big role in education in England; schools are full of computers and technologies. For me as a student, I think that without ICT it would be too hard to study and I’m lucky enough that I know how to operate ICT and technologies.  ICT is now also important and a skill that is necessary to have in order to get good jobs and therefore by not being able to use ICT, you are already in disadvantage.

People with no education or have dropped out of education would find it difficult to control technologies and ICT; they probably haven’t even had a chance to play with ICT. Furthermore these people would find it difficult to get jobs not because they didn’t finished their education but because they do not have ICT experience and in today’s society having this experience is crucial.

Here are some graphs/pictures about UK digital divide

Digital Divide Global

Have you ever wondered if people in Africa or any less developed countries have the technologies you have? Or can they use a computer? This is where digital divide comes along. Digital divide has been a problem for quite a long period of time, Digital divide just like any other issue like economic and social problems, it is has become global. Global Digital divide is best described as having opportunity to access the internet, communication tools and any kind of ICT and technology and those who do not. But it’s not just about having these technologies; it is also about having the knowledge, the skills and the abilities to use these technologies.

The digital divide can exist through different situations like the area of where you live, urban area or rural area, the educated and uneducated and the difference between economic state of different countries and more.

Developed Countries

We now live in the world where if you’re rich, you’ll only get richer and richer and get more power but if you’re poor, it seems that you’ll only get poorer. This is a key factor that cause digital divide.

Developed countries have no problem on having or getting an access to different technologies and internet.  Their economic state is very stable therefore they have sufficient income and money is not a problem. They also get the best technologies, best technician and develop these technologies further. An example of this type of countries is America; America is very populated and has millions of people from around the world. Even though they are very populated, most of these people work everyday which makes America very stable. Computers are also provided in some work places therefore ICT skills are very much needed and therefore most American would know how to operate a computer.

Developing Countries or less developed countries

As we all now, money is a huge problem in less developed countries. If someone does have money, that person would have much at all. People in these countries simple do now have the money to buy and get technologies. Additionally, technology is not a big problem for them, it’s not what they actually need which makes it less important. First thing on their mind is just keeping alive and having the basic needs to live.

Income differences between the 2 types of countries would also cause Digital Divide. The more extra money you have the better chances of you getting technologies but as I said above in less developed countries, this extra money might be use for something more important for them.

Rural Area

Rural area is most likely to be located in the country side, this is where infrastructures are not developed, they also have low population and pretty much just all land. People who lived in this area might have access to the internet but it might be hard to get them as they’re isolated or away from the cities meaning that high speed internet connection is hard to come by as internet companies will not build an infrastructure in rural area as they know that there are less people and there isn’t much potential subscribers.

Urban Area

Urban area is the complete opposite of rural area. This is where many people are located and most likely to be located in cities. People are attracted to live in this area as there are many jobs available for them, big shops, many people to meet and just simple because their family is from there. Urban area is where you can see big buildings; these buildings will normally have computers. Many people would have access in internet in this type of area as they’ll need it for work.

Internet companies would most likely to be located here as there are more people, houses and more technologies around which mean they’ll get more money and income.



This is a graph about USA digital divide.  Although this shows that internet users are more likely to be in the urban area, we can’t hide the fact that overall both urban and rural area’s access to the internet is gradually developing every year. This shows that it eventually both rural and urban area would have the same access to the internet or the same amount of internet users  

Educated

Education is a big factor in digital divide. If you’re well educated, you’re most likely to have ICT available around you to help you with your work or even work in the future. Computers are vital at school these days as it has now become the main source of information and there are even some ICT specialist schools. Finishing education could lead to many life changing opportunities like getting a better job, higher up in the society status and this could all lead to having a better life overall not just for yourself but for your family. With a better job comes better income or money, this means that you’ll be then be able to buy technologies that you’ve always wanted. It’s amazing how education and hard work can change people’s lives.

Uneducated

Not everyone has a chance to go to school and even finish school.  In some countries you’ll have to pay to get into schools, money has massive effect to education. Without the right amount of funding, education would be difficult. Poor countries struggled with getting funding for education; this is maybe because their country wants to focus on something else or maybe just simply the fact that their leader is corrupt.

This also works reversely, without computers or any technologies education would be difficult.  This is why rich countries tend to have better school system and better academic awards or grades which improve their country over all.

Age

Some people would argue that age has a factor in digital divide.  Obviously the older generation didn’t grow up with technologies around them, technologies are just recently invented.  Older generation doesn’t seem to be encouraged to use technology at all, they don’t see the point of it but this is only because they are use to not having them. If you ask a teenager right now if they could live without technologies, the obvious answer would probably be no.

But for some older people they are now trying their best to learn or want to learn how to use technologies; there are many organisations around the world that helps them. This is one way of bridging digital divide which I’ll be discussing more off later.

This is a graph that shows people age over 18 in USA who uses computer or internet. This graphs shows that it is gradually increasing every year.

By narrowing the digital divide in the world, I would like to think that all countries would develop quicker and efficiently. It wouldn’t just help countries as a whole but it would also help individuals. Additionally, I think that the world would also be a lot closer as we could all communicate with each other easily and it could also mend the world problems and maybe even stop wars rising in the future.

Here are some stats about digital divide all over the world:

-      In 2004, less than 3 out of 100 Africans use the internet whilst in G8 countries its 1 out of every 2. (G8- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US)

-          There are more than 8 times as many internet users in the US, twice as many internet users in Germany and 3 times as many internet users in Japan than on the entire African continent

-          More than 40 countries have less than 10Mbps of international Internet bandwidth whilst in Belgium a 9Mbps ADSL high speed internet package is available  



Civil Rights

There has been many debate about the impact of ICT in today’s society, civil rights has been infringe in many different ways since the development of ICT. Giving individual to receive equal treatment is not always possible or can be quite difficult; many surveillance cameras are now around the street, phone hacking and computer hacking are also very popular in today’s society. With more data and more technologies it means it’s more likely that rights to privacy and civil rights are compromised. These are examples on how civil rights are being infringed and due to all of these; certain laws are created to protect individual and give them the freedom they should have. Government exchanges data and people worried about their personal data not being accurate or being shown to public. Computer makes copying and collecting data more sufficient and very convenient

Examples of how ICT may/can breach civil rights
Surveillance Cameras- having surveillance cameras is not illegal but how you use the video in the surveillance camera sometimes may breech civil right. Putting the video online or broadcasting it to everyone may be considered as illegal.

Phone hacking- is illegally listening to the voicemails or conversation of a mobile phone without the consent of the phone’s owner. Mobile phone hacking can also mean intercepting mobile calls to listen, taking control of the phone to receive copies of text messages etc. 

Phone hacking has been all over the news this recent years and the biggest talk is the News of the world. This is an article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16265505

The Internet

How Internet-related civil rights covered by current law?

The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ECHR both contain articles relating to freedom of thought, expression and association. The ECHR also contains an article relating to the right to private life and private correspondence. Article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers

Is there an alternative model for Internet rights?

Many governments have promoted rights for electronic commerce and strengthened intellectual property rights, but few have done parallel work to represent the interests of the general public. They believe that the new digital media, there has been no specific move to protect rights to access and use information and communications technologies.
The Association for Progressive Communications has been developing a Charter for Internet Rights as part of its work on Internet rights. It sets out seven key themes:

• The right to communicate 
• Freedom of expression and information exchange 
• Diversity of content, ownership and control, and the protection of user rights 
• The licensing and control of intellectual property 
• Privacy 
• Global, regional and national governance of the Internet 
• Rights awareness and realisation of rights 

Data Protection Act 1998
Data protection act 1998 covers how information about a person is used and stored. This act is a UK law on processing data on identifiable living people. It requires protecting people’s fundamental rights and freedoms to the processing of their personal data. It provides a way for individual to control information about themselves and anyone holding personal data for other purpose is legally obliged to comply with this Act.

This act covers 8 data protection principles:

• Personal data shall be obtained only for lawful purposes 
• Personal data shall not be transferred to a country without adequate protection 
• Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully 
• Personal data shall always be accurate and up to date 
• Personal data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive and other data needed may be used 
• Personal data shall not be kept for longer than necessary for that purpose or purposes 
• Rights of individuals, you should have the right to have data about you removed 
• Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data 

Computer Misuse act

Computer Misuse act is an act of the UK Parliament in 1990. It’s design to stop computer/internet crimes as hacking into other people’s computer or system, helping a person to gain access to protected files on someone else’s computer.

It’s split into sections

• Accessing computer material without permission with intent to commit further criminal offences. EG hacking into bank’s computer and wanting to put more money into your account 
• Changing or altering computer data without permission. EG writing a virus to someone else’s data 

There are many different types of computer misuse; they all come in several forms. The most popular or known one is hacking. Hacking is where an unauthorised person uses a network to gain access past security password to see data stored on computer, hackers sometimes use a software hacking tools and target particular sites on the internet. Another well know one is viruses. Viruses are generally simple programs written by people, its main purpose is to damage computers or files. Unauthorised transfer or copying is another type of computer misuses. Illegal transfer of data is very easy and quick thing to do but personal data cannot be copied without the copyright holder’s permission and if someone does copy it then it’s breaking the computer misuse law. Furthermore, email and chat room abuses can also be classified as computer misuse. Internet services such as chat rooms and email have been the subject of many well publicised cases of impersonation where people who are online pretend to have a different identity. Chat rooms have also been used to spread rumours about certain people but the biggest and well known one is email spam, where millions of emails are sent to advertise both legal and illegal products and services. Lastly, copying or distributing copyrighted music, software and films are also illegal. Copying music or movies using computer then distributing it on the internet without the copyright holder’s permission is the main and commonly issue, this breaks the copyright regulations.

How can you or how to prevent computer misuse?

• Closing down chat rooms 
• Some chat rooms have moderators who help to prevent abuses 
• Reduce email spamming 
• Never reply to anonymous emails 
• Setting filters on your email account 
• Reporting spammers 
• Security 
• Keeping their data safe with “backups” and sufficient security with passwords

Crime Prevention

Preventing crime by using ICT very common in today’s society, ICT had a tremendous affect on the way we live today. The information age has changed crime and how it can be prevented massively. Police stations now that their own websites and computers, this makes it easier for citizens to contact them and interact with them. Police has seen the ICT can be use to their advantage and therefore started to use it wisely. They now use different technologies available around them to make their jobs easier and more effective, it makes it quicker for them to prevent crimes and catch criminals. The development ICT created more crimes available; today they are now electronic hacking or robbing bank electronically, emails and internet frauds and variety of viruses. Crime has now become global due to the information age. With new crimes occurring the government had to make changes and make new laws to prevent these types of crimes.

Technologies used

Have you ever watched CSI and wondered, wow how did they solved this crime? Well obviously, CSI is not real and some technologies they use is not really as well but wouldn’t it wonderful if we actually have all of those technologies? There is nothing to worry about; police in today’s society have number of technologies to give them an extra hand.

Every police station will now have computers available. This is where they will be processing and storing all of data collected from the criminals and other offenders; they could also use computers to get more data or details about a person, furthermore they could write reports and store reports which make it more organised instead of having written reports that you could lose easily. Computers have now become a vital part of police stations; it is their main storage of information. It is also now possible to report minor crimes over the Internet, this give the person who reported the crime a feeling of secure and safety.

Programmes that can be stored or downloaded in computers are also being use in police stations. Holmes2 is a computer programme created to help keep vital evidences and it also reduces paperwork. Furthermore it can easily identify a missing person if given the right descriptions, it will then match automatically. If a match is found or confirmed, the police can then easily contact relatives. This show how new technologies can make police’s job more sufficient and quicker. Police also uses the internet to communicate with each other; an example is the Criminal Justice extranet. It’s a network that allows police and other organisations to communicate and share documents securely and safely.

Before, computers were not available at all or it wasn’t as developed which means that polices have to write their reports and keep it in their stations, this is hard and long work. Additionally, this means that losing reports is easy which could lead to more problems and more work.

Digital radio is probably the most common technology or most well known technology that police uses. But they have now updated it and digital radios now has encrypted transmission to allow officers to communicate securely, this means no hacking and the sound is very clear to hear.

Identifying a person, criminal or victim was difficult back then; there were no technologies available to help. The technologies available today has immensely changed therefore it means that identifying a person is much quicker. One type of technology that is used today is biometrics. It easily identifies people using physical using physical characteristics such as fingerprints. Biometrics works by recognizing patterns that are unique to individual. Biometrics is used to identify fingerprints, each one of have different finger prints or patterns on our fingers. Usually, fingerprints were taken by covering fingertips with ink and pressing it down on paper, but now fingerprints can be scanned electronically. This means that the image that is collected can be visually seen easily and clearly, the computers will then be used to match the prints against other fingerprints in their database. Fingerprints have been used to identify people for a long time. Polices are also beginning to use palm prints in addition to fingerprints.

DNA Analysis is another one that has become important for identifying both criminals and victims. Each every one of us has unique DNA apart from identical twins, sample of DNA sample like body fluid, tissue or hair that is found in a crime scene can be use to compare with other criminals or other suspects

CCTV cameras are now also can be use to identity a person especially if it’s used with facial recognition system, with many CCTV cameras around there is no way a criminal would get away easily without being seen.

Automatic Number Plate Recognition is also new technology that helps police. Its cameras can tell the police within seconds whether a vehicle has been stolen or is known to be involved in crime or if it doesn’t have tax etc. Instead of contacting back to the police station to ask if a car is stolen the police will use ANPR to detect it, they can then easily and quickly react and catch the car.

In the future, many more technologies will develop and grow. All criminals or bad people should be scared by this thought and I’m pretty sure that sooner or later indentifying criminals or even arresting them will be done with no hassle at all.

This is an article discussing on how we can protect children, they were talking about how we can use technology to help and lower the risk of children being killed, raped etc.

Police National Computer (PNC)

PNC is a computer system used by law enforcement organisations all over UK. PNC provides and allows quick and accurate research that includes ANPR, the PNC scans thousands of number plates alerting police to any that are needed to be caught. Vehicle online descriptive search or VODS, it allows users to search the vehicles database such as post code, registration etc. there are many more that PNC could do.

PNC is still and continually improving or upgrading making sure that development is what police needs or required. One of the most recent introductions has included the National Firearms register and mobile data checking.

There are many benefits of using PNC:

• Can be accessed 24/7 
• Allows sharing of information through a secure network 
• Quick, efficient tool for investigating crimes 

New crimes are developed due to the changed in technologies and the development of ICT. These crimes include cyber crime, phishing, hacking, viruses etc. With new crimes occurring, new laws are introduced to intervened and stop these crimes.

Cyber crimes

Phishing- this is probably one of the common cyber crimes at the moment. Phishing is an e-mail fraud in which the scammers sends out a legitimate looking email in an attempt to gather personal and financial information from recipients. Phishing e-mail messages, website and phone calls are all designed to steal money but you can detect phishing by looking for spelling mistake and bad grammar, if the email is threatening you etc.

Computer Hacking- this is probably the most popular form of hacking in today’s society but hacking also has many other forms, such as phone hacking. Computer hacking is the process in which where someone gains or try to gain access to a computer system without the owner’s permission.

Spam- the voluntary sending of emails that is illegal or unlawful in some areas in an attempt to force the message on people who would not choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising; there are 2 types of spam, the email spam which targets individual users with direct mail messages and the Usenet spam which targets or aimed at "lurkers", people who read newsgroups but rarely or never post and give their address away.

Fraud- is the deliberate act of deception intended for personal gain or to cause other person damages. There are many different forms of fraud, some may be facilitated by using computer systems this include bank fraud, identity theft, extortion and theft of classified information.

Laws to stop cyber crimes

Computer Misuse act

Computer Misuse act is an act of the UK Parliament in 1990. It’s design to stop computer/internet crimes as hacking into other people’s computer or system, helping a person to gain access to protected files on someone else’s computer.

It’s split into sections

• Accessing computer material without permission with intent to commit further criminal offences. EG hacking into bank’s computer and wanting to put more money into your account 
• Changing or altering computer data without permission. EG writing a virus to someone else’s data 

Data Protection Act 1998

This act covers 8 data protection principles:

• Personal data shall be obtained only for lawful purposes 
• Personal data shall not be transferred to a country without adequate protection 
• Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully 
• Personal data shall always be accurate and up to date 
• Personal data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive and other data needed may be used 
• Personal data shall not be kept for longer than necessary for that purpose or purposes 
• Rights of individuals, you should have the right to have data about you removed 
• Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data