Who gets harmed: the five targets
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The exam frames every harm question around who is affected. The Five harm targets are individuals, groups, society, organisations and ecosystems - and harms are not singular: one system (e.g. facial recognition) can hit several at once.
The exam frames every harm question around who is affected. The Five harm targets are individuals, groups, society, organisations and ecosystems. The Five harm targets are individuals, groups, society, organisations and ecosystems. Learn the five buckets and what sits in each.
| Target | What sits in it |
|---|---|
| 👤 Individuals | Civil rights · economic opportunity · safety |
| 👥 Groups | Discrimination towards population subgroups → gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status |
| 🏛️ Society | Democratic process · trust in government · educational access · job redistribution |
| 🏢 Organisations | Reputational · cultural · economic · acceleration risks |
| 🌍 Ecosystems | Natural resources · environment · supply chain |
Harms are not singular - one system can hit several targets at once. The set-piece example is facial recognition → harms individuals (journalists, protesters, domestic-violence victims, wrongful identification for a crime), groups (identifying marginalised people who gather regularly at one location), society (deepfakes and spoofing eroding public trust) and organisations (privacy violations and security breaches through biometric theft).
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