IB Digital Society Topic 5 - Challenges and Interventions - Digital Society Key Definitions

The design of digital systems so that people with disabilities can use them, through features like screen readers, captions, and alternative ways to input. Well-designed systems widen inclusion, while poorly designed ones create new barriers.

Systematic, unfair outcomes produced by a computer system, often because the data it learned from under-represents some groups or encodes past inequality. In healthcare it can mean a tool works well for some patients and poorly for others.

A systematic error in an algorithm that produces unfair outcomes, often by favouring one group over another.

The use of technology to perform tasks without human intervention.

The degree to which a system can operate and make decisions on its own, without human control. Autonomy is a spectrum, from simple assistance to full independence.

Datasets so large, fast-moving, and varied that ordinary tools cannot store or process them, usually described by the four Vs: volume, velocity, variety, and veracity.

The total greenhouse gas emissions caused by an activity, product, or organization, usually expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent. For a digital system it spans manufacturing, operation, and disposal.

An economic model that keeps materials in use as long as possible through repair, reuse, refurbishment, and recycling, in contrast to a linear make-use-dispose model.

Long-term shifts in global or regional climate patterns, often linked to human activities like burning fossil fuels and deforestation.

The process by which platforms review and remove content that breaks their rules or the law, deciding what is allowed to stay online and what is taken down.

The use of digital attacks on an opponent's computer systems and networks to disrupt, damage, or spy, often targeting critical infrastructure. A defining feature is the attribution problem: it is frequently hard to prove who launched an attack, which weakens deterrence and accountability.

Using digital tools, especially social media and messaging, to raise awareness, organise, and mobilise people for a political or social cause. It lowers the cost of collective action but is criticised for shallow, low-effort participation and exposure to surveillance.

The gap between people who have reliable access to digital systems and the skills to use them and those who do not, a gap that tends to follow existing lines of income, age, geography, and ability.

An official, often biometric, system that gives each person a unique identity a state or service can verify. It can unlock access to benefits, banking, and services and bring the undocumented into the system, but it can also exclude those who cannot enrol and concentrate sensitive data in one place.

Technologies, applications, and platforms that create, store, process, and distribute digital data and information. Smartphones, social media platforms, AI assistants, and robots are all digital systems.

False information created and spread deliberately to deceive, often to sway opinion during a conflict or an election. It differs from misinformation, which is false information shared without the intent to mislead.

The delivery of government services and interactions with citizens through digital systems, such as online tax filing, digital ID, and internet voting. It can make services faster and more accessible, but raises issues of security, verifiability, and unequal access.

Waste and garbage of electronic devices.

A machine learning application that identifies or verifies a person from an image or video by comparing patterns in their facial features against stored data.

Giving people access to useful, affordable financial services such as saving, sending money, and borrowing. Digital tools like mobile money can extend it to those without a bank account, though access still depends on a device and network and is set by private providers.

AI that produces new text, images, audio, or code by learning patterns from vast training data. It is a powerful form of narrow AI, not a general intelligence, despite how capable it can seem.

An economy in which people offer short-term services and commissions via digital technologies.

Speech that attacks or demeans a person or group because of a characteristic such as race, religion, gender, or disability. Digital networks can spread it quickly and widely, which is why platforms and laws try, imperfectly, to limit it.

The effects and outcomes that a digital system has actually produced for people and communities.