Legal Issues in IT Industry
Learn how important and crucial legal regulations become with the evolution in IT
Legal Issues in IT Industry
As the IT industry rises to newer heights, many companies from small companies to large companies often overlook the regulations or the structure placed by the government and the regulatory bodies. This oversight may sometimes cost companies a lot. Today’s privacy laws and regulation laws lack consistency and transparency.
The following are some of the key areas are as follows:
Customer Privacy
With the rise of e-commerce, social networks and online streaming, large amount of publicly as well as privately available data, is gathered, transferred and consumed over the internet. In such a fast-evolving environment, where online service providers have to adopt a business model where they can facilitate data collection and along with it provide services for free or cheap. Such services may be funded by advertising income where personal information is gathered, analyzed and then used for monetization purposes. Regulatory bodies worldwide have recommended to such service providers to adopt more transparency and obtain a user’s consent before using their data.
Evolution of Copyright Laws
Copyright laws have been changing and evolving over time, the most recent expansion of the internet copyright regulation has raised many controversies. In the IT world where internet has enabled individuals to record their ideas in words, images, videos and sounds and then release it to the world, in this kind of environment copyright laws and regulations are very crucial. Right now, if you upload something you've made, and then someone else steals it and posts to their site then it's on you, the individual, to figure that out and to try to get it taken down. But with more regulation and the recent evolution of the copyright laws, the company who infringes will be held responsible as they did not take proper measures to avoid copyright infringement.
Consumer Rights
Consumer rights, established under the laws of many countries, include:
- Fair value, good quality and safety
- Fair and honest dealing
- Fair and reasonable marketing
- Supplier accountability
- Just and reasonable terms
- Redress mechanisms that are easy to access and quick to resolve issues
- Disclosure of information
The above laws were put in place to prevent the suppliers from exploiting consumers. These laws also prevent retailers to gain an unfair competitive advantage over other retailers in order to protect consumers. The above laws make are critically applied even-handedly to online service providers and their competitors for consumer protection.
Legal Issues surrounding AI
Automation and AI has been disrupting every single industry, from manufacturing to clerical work. With the automation and capabilities of AI increasing exponentially, more and more jobs are lost. According to a McKinsey report, some 375 million jobs worldwide will be lost by 2030. Except jobs there are also many other issues surrounding AI that need to be considered and regulated. Take self-driving cars for example, if an AI-powered car is faced with the split-second dilemma of hitting either a woman and a stroller, a homeless man, or a business executive, who writes the algorithm that makes that choice? Who decides who gets to live or die? Should it be computer programmers? This is where we need regulation and government intervention and proper AI regulatory frameworks need to be in place to prevent any issues.
References
- Quora. (2019, July 1). What Are The Biggest Regulatory Issues Facing The Tech Industry Today? Retrieved May 3, 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2019/07/01/what-are-the-biggest-regulatory-issues-facing-the-tech-industry-today/#557996b77ae9
- Legal issues currently affecting the tech sector. (2018, June 13). Retrieved May 3, 2020, from https://www.information-age.com/legal-issues-currently-affecting-tech-sector-123458694/
- Regulatory challenges and opportunities in the new ICT ... (2018). Retrieved May 3, 2020, from https://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-d/opb/pref/D-PREF-BB.REG_OUT03-2018-PDF-E.pdf
- Charrie, A. (2019, September 19). The Right Way to Regulate the Tech Industry. Retrieved May 3, 2020, from https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-right-way-to-regulate-the-tech-industry/
- Policy, I. (n.d.). Policy and regulation for the tech sector. Retrieved May 3, 2020, from https://www.inlinepolicy.com/tech-sector-policy-regulation