This paper looks at a number of higher education and workplace RSI prevention policies, from countries including the United Kingdom, Australia, China and the United States, to morally evaluate them. Evaluations take into account a variety of issues including the balance of corporate responsibility as against individual responsibility. In doing so, some of the broader issues of employer responsibility for health and safety are reviewed. For a high proportion of policies studied, there is too much weight on individual responsibility. Many policies pay little or no attention to the context in which the computers are being used, putting unrealistic demands on individuals as a result.
Consideration is made of a variety of contexts in which ICTs are used.
These include potentially problematic situations where due to work pressure it is difficult to take breaks. One technically possible method for employers to take responsibility for the prevention of RSI is to electronically monitor keyboard use and other aspects of computer use. However, this gives rise to serious privacy concerns. Again this is of particular relevance when considering the spread of ICTs to less industrialised countries, as the high relative cost of them makes it likely that much access will be at shared workstations. The paper also suggests that computer suppliers have a responsibility to supply relatively inexpensive software and equipment to prevent RSI with the computers they are supplying.