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CHAPTER 4 - Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems - Coggle…
CHAPTER 4 - Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems
What Ethical Social and Political Issues are raised by Information System
Five Moral Dimensions of the Information Age
Accountability and control
System quality
Property rights and obligations
Quality of life
Information rights and obligations
Key Technology Trends that Raise Ethical Issues
Data storage cost rapidly decline
Organizations can easily maintain detailed databases on individuals. There are no limits on the data collected about you
Networking advances
The cost of moving data and making it accessible from anywhere falls exponentially. Access to data becomes more difficult to control
Data analysis advances
Companies can analyze vast quantities of data gathered on individuals to develop detailed profiles of individual behavior.
Mobile device growth impact
Individual cell phones may be tracked without user consent or knowledge. The always-on device becomes a tether.
Computing power doubles every 18 months
More organizations depend on computer systems for critical operations and become more vulnerable to system failures
Examples of failed Ethical Judgement by senior managers
Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, UBS (2012)
SAC Capital (2013)
Takata Corporation (2015)
GlaxoSmithKline LLC (2012)
General Motors Inc.(2015)
McKinsey & Company (2012)
Volkswagen (2015)
Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness (NOR A)
A data analysis technology has given both the government and the private sector even more powerful profiling capabilities, it can take information about people from many disparate sources, such as employment applications, telephone records, customer listings, and wanted lists, and correlate relationships to find obscure connections that might help identify criminals or terrorists
Ethics refers to principles of
right
and
wrong
that individuals, acting as free moral agents, use to make choices to guide their behaviors.
Profiling, the use of computers to combine data from multiple sources and create digital dossiers of detailed information on individuals
DoubleClick - owned by google, an Internet advertising broker , to track the activities of their visitors in exchange for revenue from advertisements based on visitor information DoubleClick gathers
LexisNexis Risk Solutions - gathers data from police, criminal and motor vehicle records, credit and employment histories, current and previous addresses, professional licenses, and insurance claims to assemble and maintain dossiers on almost every adult in the United States
What Specific Principles for conduct can be used to guide ethical decisions
Five-Step Process in Ethical Analysis
Identify the stakeholders. Every ethical, social and political issue has stakeholders; players in the game who have an interest in the outcome, who have invested in the situation, and usually who have vocal opinions
Identify the options that you can responsibly take. You may find that none of the options satisfy all the interest involved but that some options do a better job than others
Define the conflict or dilemma and identify the higher-order values involved Ethical, social and political issues always reference higher values
Identify the potential consequences of your options. Some options may be ethically correct but disastrous from other points of view
Identify and describe the facts clearly Find out who did what to whom and where, when and how
Candidate Ethical Principle
If an action cannot be taken repeatedly, it is not right to take at all. This is the slippery slope rule
Take the action that achieves the higher or greater value (utilitarian principle)
If an action is not right for everyone to take, it is not right for anyone (Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative)
Assume that virtually all tangible and intangible objects are owned by someone else unless there is a specific declaration otherwise. (This is the ethical no-freelunch rule)
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you (the Golden Rule)
Take the action that achieves the higher or greater value (utilitarian principle)
Due process - is a related feature of law-governed societies and is a process in which laws are known and understood, and ability exists to appeal to higher authorities to ensure that the laws are applied correctly
Professional Codes of Conduct
Promulgated by associations of professionals such as the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Bar Association (ABA), the Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP), and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Basic Concept
Accountability - is a feature of systems and social institutions; it means that mechanisms are in place to determine who took action and who is responsible
Liability - extends the concepts of responsibility further to the area of laws
Responsibility - is a key element of ethical action it means that you accept the potential costs, duties and obligations for the decisions you make
Real-World Ethical Dilemmas
Many companies monitor what their employees are doing on the internet to prevent them from wasting company resources on nonbusiness activities
Facebook monitors its subscribers and then sells the information to advertisers and app developers
Many companies use voice recognition software to reduce the size of their customer support staff by enabling computers to recognize a customer's response to a series of computerized questions
Why do contemporary information system technology and the Internet pose challenges to the protection of individual privacy and intellectual property
Internet Challenges to Privacy
1) Websites track searches that have been conducted, the websites and web pages visited, the online content a person has accessed and what items that person has inspected or purchased over the web
Example: If you purchase a book on Amazon.com and return later from the same browser, the site will welcome you by name and recommend other books of interest based on your past purchases
Cookies : are small text files deposited on a computer hard drive when a user visits websites. Cookies identify the visitor's web browser software and track visits to the website
2) There are now even more subtle and surreptitious tools for surveillance of Internet users. So-called super cookies or flash cookies cannot be easily deleted and can be installed whenever a person clicks a Flash video
Web Beacons : also called web bugs or simply tracking files, are tiny software programs that keep a record of users' online clickstreams
3) Other spyware can security install itself on an Internet user's computer by piggybacking on larger applications
Information Rights: Privacy and Freedom in the Internet Age
Federal Trade Commission Fair Information Practice Principles
Access or Participation
Enforcement
Notice or Awareness
Security
Choice or Consent
Federal Privacy Laws in the United States
General Federal Privacy Laws
Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act 1988
Computer Security Act of 1987
Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986
Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act of 1982
Privacy Act 1974 as Amended
Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994
Freedom of Information Act of 1966 as amended
E-Government Act of 2002
Privacy Laws Effecting Private Institutions
Privacy Protection Act of 1980
Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984
Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978
Electronic Communications Privacy Act 0f 1986
Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974
Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988
Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 Children Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) OF 1998 Financial Modernization Act (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act) of 1999
Privacy : is the claim of individuals to be left alone, free from surveillance or interference from the other individuals or organizations, including the state. Claims to privacy are also involved at the workplace
The European Directive on Data Protection : In Europe, privacy protection is much more stringent than in the United States. Unlike the United States, European countries do not allow businesses to use personally identifiable information without consumer's prior consent
Informed Consent : can be defined as consent given with knowledge of all the facts needed to make a rational decision