Background information
TrashCat are a London-based start-up with an automated, just-in time waste collection product
managed service: AutoTrash.
TrashCat have just received a significant, multi-million-pound investment from a team of venture
capitalists. This will allow them to potentially run a large-scale trial of AutoTrash with London
Council.
Each household in the Camden, Croydon and Greenwich area will be allocated a monthly waste
budget based on its council tax brand. Householders will be issued with smart bins for recycled and
non-recycled waste. Once the bins are full, they will automatically message a waste control center
managed by TrashCat. A human dispatcher will authorize a waste-collection by an autonomous
garbage truck. Each truck has an all-terrain robot that will collect kerbside waste from smart bins
after first calculating the waste in each. If, after the collection, the waste budget has been exceeded
then a surcharge will be added to the household’s council tax bin.
Each household has a unique identity derived from their council tax records. Their identity is
verified based on sensor data collected by the waste collection robots. Messaging between smart
bis, robots, vehicles and the dispatch center is via tamper-proof secure channels.
Despite being based on commodity hardware and open-source software, many elements of
AutoTrash are considered sensitive intellectual property by TrashCat, who are reluctant to reveal
details of its workings. Nonetheless, Trash Cat acknowledge there might be security and privacy
risks to their solution and plan a “robust security architecture” to address them.
London Council have contracted you as a “sociotechnical engineer” to examine the feasibility of
any prospective AutoTrash trial. Write a report on the legal, ethical and human factor feasibility of
AutoTrash.
Deliverable
Report should not be any longer than 1500 words. It should be professionally structured and written
for a range of technical and non-technical stakeholders. Figures, tables, references and appendages
are excluded from the word count. Feel free to choose the most appropriate structure for presenting
the report.
Ensure that all legal implications, ethical implications and human factor implications presented
are accurate, appropriate and analyzed in detail.
Ensure that important ethical and legal issues are identified and their impact on professional
behaviour linked to computer security is identified.
Research and analyze material and real-world situations that relate to ethical and legal issues
linked to human aspects of security.
Systematically debate, discuss and report the outcome of investigations and choose a side -
whether this outline is feasible or not.