After studying this chapter you will be able to understand: What ethical, social, and political issues are raised by information systems? What specific principles for conduct can be used to guide ethical decisions? Why do contemporary information systems technology and the Internet pose challenges to the protection of individual privacy and intellectual property? How have information systems affected everyday life? | ProfessionalPracticesin Information Technology HandBook COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (Virtual Campus) Islamabad, Pakistan Lecture 08 Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems (Continued) Non obvious Relationship Awareness (Nora) NORA technology can take information about people from disparate sources and find obscure, non obvious relationships. It might discover, for example, that an applicant for a job at a casino shares a telephone number with a known criminal and issue an alert to the hiring manager. , Figure 4-2: Non obvious Relationship Awareness (Nora) Ethics in an Information Society Basic concepts for ethical analysis Responsibility: Accepting the potential costs, duties, and obligations for decisions Accountability: Mechanisms for identifying responsible parties Liability: Permits individuals (and firms) to recover damages done to them Due process: Laws are well known and understood, with an ability to appeal to higher authorities Ethical analysis: A five-step process – Identify and clearly describe the facts – Define the conflict or dilemma and identify the higher-order values involved – Identify the stakeholders – Identify the options that you can reasonably take – Identify the potential consequences of your options Six Candidate Ethical Principles Golden Rule – Do unto others as you would have them do unto you Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative – If an action is not right for everyone to take, it is not right for anyone Descartes’ Rule of Change – If an action cannot be taken repeatedly, it is not right to take at all Utilitarian Principle – Take the action that achieves the higher or greater value Risk Aversion Principle – Take the action that produces the least harm or least potential cost Ethical “no free lunch” Rule – Assume that virtually all tangible and intangible objects are owned by someone unless there is a specific declaration otherwise Professional codes of conduct – Promulgated by associations of professionals – . AMA, ABA, AITP, ACM – Promises by professions to regulate themselves in the general interest of society Real-world ethical dilemmas – One set of interests pitted against another – . Right of company to maximize productivity of workers vs. workers right to use Internet for short personal tasks The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems Privacy: – Claim of individuals to be left alone, free from surveillance or interference from other individuals, organizations, or state. Claim to be able to control information about yourself In ., privacy protected by: – First Amendment (freedom of speech) – Fourth Amendment (unreasonable search and seizure) – Additional federal statues (. Privacy Act of 1974) Fair information practices: Set of principles governing the collection and use of information. It is basis for most . and European privacy laws. These are based on mutuality of interest between record holder and individual. Restated and extended by FTC in 1998 to provide guidelines for protecting online privacy. Used to drive changes in privacy legislation – COPPA – Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act – HIPAA FTC FIP principles: – Notice/awareness (core principle) – Choice/consent (core principle) – Access/participation – Security – Enforcement Professional Practices in Information Technology CSC 110
