Last time you looked at computers in transport, health and entertainment around Ireland. Today the question is different: just because a computer can do something, should it?

You will take a stand on real cases about apps you already use, hear the strongest argument from the other side, and decide whether to move.

An ethical question is a question about what is right or fair to do, not just what is possible or legal. Computing raises many of them. Three that come up again and again are:

• Privacy: who gets to see information about you, and who decides?
• Fairness: does the system treat different people equally, or does it favour some over others?
• Access: who can use the technology, and who is left out?

Think about an app on your phone right now. It might track where you go, which posts you open, or how long you look at a screen. That data can make the app better, and it can also be sold, shared, or kept for years. The hard part is that reasonable people disagree about where the line should be.

Before we go on, decide privately: is collecting that data mostly fine, mostly not OK, or does it depend?

For each statement, take a position on the class line from Not OK through It depends to Perfectly fine. Your teacher will say whether the class is walking to a line marked on the floor or showing the line on the board. The markers on the board show where groups in the room are standing, not one each.

Each statement comes with a short question to think about before anyone argues. Use it to work out one reason a person standing at the opposite end might give, then listen while someone from that end gives their strongest reason aloud. If that reason changes your mind, move, because changing your mind for a good reason is the point of the activity. Be ready to say which kind of question the statement raises: privacy, fairness, or access.

1. Case A together

A free mobile game asks for your location "to show local leaderboards," then keeps tracking you after you close the game.

This first case is done out loud together. On the board you will see the ethical question this case raises, the label that fits it, and one worked example of a permission card: a small settings box, like the ones in a real app, that names a single control and says in plain words what happens when it is switched ON and when it is switched OFF. Talk about Case A rather than writing it up, because you will write your own card next.