Legal and ethical standards

Legal standards are the rules set out in law. Ethical standards are based on what society believes is right and wrong. An organisation has to meet both, but only one of them can be enforced in court.

Legal standards

Legal standards come from legislation, and they are enforceable: a regulator or a court can force an organisation to change what it does, and breaking the law can lead to penalties such as fines, disciplinary action against the staff responsible, or imprisonment.

Any organisation that uses technology must follow the laws covering that use. Data protection law controls how it stores and shares personal data, and the Equality Act 2010 covers how it treats the people using its services. Laws are updated and replaced over time, so an organisation has to keep checking that its systems and policies still match the current version; following an old version of a law is still breaking the law.

Ethical standards

Ethical standards are not written into law. Society works them out over time, and they are the behaviour people expect from a fair, honest organisation. No one can be prosecuted for ignoring them, but the consequences are real: customers lose trust, staff leave, and a reputation built over years can be damaged in days.

The two are not the same, and something can be legal but not ethical. A video-sharing app tunes its recommendations to keep you watching for as long as possible, even when its own research shows some clips leave young users feeling worse. No law is broken, but many people would call it unethical, because the app puts viewing time ahead of its users' wellbeing.