Social practice questions.

In several Indian states, the monthly food ration under the public distribution system is released only after the cardholder's fingerprint is matched against the Aadhaar database, which the Unique Identification Authority of India has operated since 2010. Field studies report that elderly people and manual workers are the most likely to fail the fingerprint check repeatedly. Which social implication does this pattern illustrate best?

• The ration records only become personal data once a fingerprint is attached to them
• Shopkeepers acquire the legal power to decide which households qualify for a subsidy
• An entitlement a person still holds can be lost at the moment of authentication
• The running cost of the scheme rises because every shop needs a fingerprint reader

Answer: An entitlement a person still holds can be lost at the moment of authentication

Biometric authentication adds a second test - proving on the day that you are the entitled person - and worn fingerprints fail that test although the entitlement itself is unchanged. The impact is a failed transaction; the implication is that a state guarantee now depends on how readable a body is.

South Korea required users to verify their identity before commenting on large web portals from 2007 until the Constitutional Court struck the requirement down in 2012. Which group of users is most directly disadvantaged when a platform makes verified identity a condition of posting?

• People who rely on pseudonymity to speak, such as abuse survivors and whistleblowers
• Advertisers, who can no longer target adverts at readers of comment threads
• Network operators, who must store and secure the verification records at their own expense
• Moderators, whose workload grows because every account must be checked manually

Answer: People who rely on pseudonymity to speak, such as abuse survivors and whistleblowers

Identification shifts the risk of speaking onto the speaker, and the people carrying most risk are those whose speech invites retaliation. The court's objection was that the rule restricted lawful expression without a matching gain, which is why more identification does not automatically mean less abuse.

After viral rumours were linked to mob attacks in India, the messaging service WhatsApp limited forwarding to five chats in India in July 2018 and, from April 2020, to one chat at a time for messages that had already been forwarded many times. Which mechanism does this measure rely on?

• It scans the text of each message and blocks the claims that fact-checkers dispute
• It deletes a message from every device on which it has already been delivered
• It verifies the identity of the person who first composed the message
• It slows how fast a message can travel instead of judging what the message says

Answer: It slows how fast a message can travel instead of judging what the message says

The messages are end-to-end encrypted, so the operator cannot read them and the only available lever is friction on distribution. That makes the measure content-neutral: it reduces the reach of everything forwarded, true or false, which is both its strength and its cost.

The neighbourhood platform Nextdoor changed the form used for crime and safety posts in 2016 so that a member reporting a suspicious person had to describe clothing and behaviour, and could not submit a post identifying the person by race alone. Which claim about digital systems does this change best illustrate?

• Removing a field from a form prevents the underlying attitude from existing
• Automated classifiers are more accurate than volunteer moderators at this task
• Interface design shapes which social judgements are easy to express
• A platform loses its legal protection once it edits what members may write

Answer: Interface design shapes which social judgements are easy to express

A form is not neutral: what it asks for is what gets reported, so a design change alters behaviour without changing anyone's beliefs. Treating the redesign as a cure for prejudice, rather than as a change in what the system records, is the usual overstatement.

Denmark has required adult residents to receive official post through the state's Digital Post system since November 2014, with an application process for exemption. Which feature of such a mandatory scheme most directly limits the exclusion of residents who cannot use it?

• A helpline that talks residents through the log-in procedure
• A larger typeface option in the mobile version of the service
• Publication of the system's source code so that experts may inspect it
• A documented exemption route that keeps a paper channel open

Answer: A documented exemption route that keeps a paper channel open

Support measures help people who can eventually use the service; only a lawful alternative channel protects those who cannot, including residents with no device or no capacity to manage one. Digital-by-default without that route turns a service into a condition of taking part in public life.

In 2021 Norway's data protection authority fined the dating app Grindr for passing user data, including the fact that a person used that app, to advertising partners without a valid legal basis. Why does the GDPR treat data revealing sexual orientation more strictly than an ordinary contact detail?

• Because disclosure can expose the person to discrimination or violence
• Because such data is harder to store securely than a name or an address
• Because it is collected by apps rather than by websites or public bodies
• Because it always identifies a person even when the record carries no name

Answer: Because disclosure can expose the person to discrimination or violence

Special category data is defined by the harm that disclosure can cause, not by how sensitive it feels or by the technology that collected it. The social implication is that an advertising arrangement decides whether membership of a stigmatised group stays private.