Mis5

Ethical and Social Issues in the Digital Firm

5.1 Understanding Ethical and Social Issues

Most ethical problems are not masterminded by the information Technology Department but very often the systems can be used by unethical people. Ethics refer to the free choices of right and wrong used by a free moral agent. Because information systems can collect so much personal information, this has become an issue where ethics have become involved. When using an information system it is essential to ask what the ethical and socially responsible course of action is.

A Model for Thinking About Ethical, Social, and political Issues

Ethical, Social, and political issues Are closely linked. People (ethics) know how to act become society has put expectations on them. These expectations are often bodied by lawn. Into the mix we add information technology. We now have an environmental that society and politics do not know how to handle much less had experience with.

Five Moral Dimensions of the Information Age

· Information rights And obligations - what rights does an organization on an individual have about information collected about them, what rights does an individual or an organization about data it collects on others?

· Property rights and obligations - how are intellectual property rights enforced?

· Accountability and control - who is held accountable if information is used in a way to harm someone?

· System Quality - What standards do we set to protest individual rights and societies softly?

· Quality of life - what values and institutions should we protect or Support?

Key Technology Trends That Raise Ethical Issues

Computing power doubles roughly every 18 months causing many firms to rely heavily on the data from these machines. Social standards are neither in place to handle this, nor legal standards either. Costs of storage have dropped, allowing for firms to collect large amounts of information on people. Like wise, advances in data analysis techniques allow for mining of that same data. If one were to take all the various pieces of digital data about a person from actions they do, a picture could develop about who this individual is and what they are like. Using Nonobvious Relationship Awareness (NORA) tools, information from many different sources can be combined that could help fight crime but raises privacy issues. The advances in computer and networks mean that information can be quickly and easily collected and shared.

5.2 Ethics in an Information society

Ethics deals with the choices one make when fared with several plans of Action.

Basic Concepts: responsibility, Accountability, and Liability

· Responsibility - you Accept the Cost for the Actions you take

· Accountability - the tools are in place to determine who took a certain action, often deals with laws

· Liability - feature of politics that permits recovery of damages when harm is done

· Due Process- feature of laws, laws are understood and there is a way to appeal to higher authorities

These all deal with the ethical process. Remember that systems are not good on bad but how they are put to use that matters. Responsibility falls on those who use them.

Ethical Analysis

· Identify and clearly describe the facts- use who, what when, where, how and why, finding the facts Can help lead to the Situation resolution

· Define the Conflict or dilemma And identify the higher-order values involved, each side often feels that their higher-order needs are the ones to be pursued and often will conflict with the others needs

· Identify the stakeholders - find out who will be affected and what they want

· Identify the options that you Can treasonably take- often the options do not Meet all need, and sometimes you need to balance one groups needs with respect to another's needs

· Identify the potential Consequences of your options - what will happen if I make this choice

Candidate Ethical Principles

· Do the others what you want you would want them to do you.

· If an action is not right for everyone to take it is not right for anyone (if everyone did this Could society Survive)

· If an action cannot be taken repeatedly it is not right to take at all (Slippery Slope Rule)

· Take the action that achieves the higher or greater value

· Take the action that produces the least harm, or the least potential cost (Risk Aversion )

· Assume that virtually all tangible and intangible objects are owned by Someone else (No Free Lunch)

Any action that cannot pass all these rules need to be looked at with caution.

Professional Codes of Conduct

Most Professional organizations have Code of conducts that must be agreed to for membership. These are a form of self regulation.

Some Real-World Ethical Dilemmas

Information Systems allow for reduce spending on employees But what about their welfare? A company has a right to monitor interest use but employees feel the right of privacy is violated. In many cases compromise needs to be done,

5.3 The Moral Dimensions of Information systems

Information Rights: Privacy and Freedom in the Internet Age

Privacy is the claim of an individual to be left alone and free from surveillance. Information technology and systems make this invasion Cheap, profitable, and effective. Most countries in the free world have privacy protection as part of their laws. These are based on a document called the Fair Information Practices. The FIP are a set of principles governing the collection and use of information of an individual. Basically, if an individual has a transaction with some agency the agency may not give out details it has collected on the individual without their permission. The FTC has agreed with this and extended it to children in 1998 with the COPPA act which will not let any web site to collect information on children under the age of 13 without parent's permission. In 1999 the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act made financial institutions tell their customers their privacy policies and to allow them to opt out of any information sharing. HIPPA sets up rules for privacy of medial records.

The European Directive on Data Protection

Europe has more Stringent riles on data Collection. They work under the policy of In formed Consent. This says that a person can agree to concert only if they have been given all the facts needed to make a rational decision. European companies can not share information with another firm outside of Europe unless that country or the firm they are dealing with has established rules on data collection.

Internet Challenges to Privacy

Since the internet is a network of computers to get information from one computer to another, any one of those computers could store information that passes through it. Tools are available to monitor what people have done on the Internet. Companies can monitor how there workers use the internet as well. Web sites can collect information that a user provider and add to it other information and attach it to Cookies. Cookies are small text files stored on a computer that can be retrieved when a person visits that site. They can be used for site personalization but they can also be used with site history as data collection and sold. Web bugs can be put on sites and especially email to track if a message was viewed. Spyware can be downloaded to people's machines that will report home where you have been, and send unsolicited ads to you. Google scans the free email accounts they provide and offers ads that relate to the content and this has some privacy advocates upset. The United States allows web sites to collect information. Some sites use opt-out sections about personal information but some people would rather have opt-in sections. While the online industry wants self regulation very few sites actually privacy policies and consumers seem to not know how to protect themselves.

Technical Solutions

The platform For Privacy Protection (P3P) allows for communications between a privacy policy on a web site, and a browser to see if it matches a user's preferences, but it is a voluntary action by the websites.

Ethical Issues

When is it ok to invade someone's privacy? When and how do we tell them it is being done?

Social Issues

Should we allow people to think they have privacy while collecting information on them.

Political Issues

Should we allow our government to Spy on us in order to protect us?

Property Rights: Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property is the intangible property created by a firm or an individual.

Trade Secrets

Any intellectual work product can be classified as a trade secret. This can include software with unique elements. To use a trade secret as a protection for a work, the company must take clear steps to protect it.

Copyright

Copyright allows for any created work to be protected for the life of the copyright. In the 1960's software was added into this category. While how the software manifests itself is protected how it works is not. This also creates problems with how software may look as there are only so many ways to do things like a drop down menu.

Patents

A patent is a monopoly on an idea for 20 years to protect how a novel idea is used. Software can have and be patented, but it is hard to do.

Challenges to Intellectual Property Rights

The rapid increase of networks has made it difficult to protect intellectual property. Networks allow for the storage and rapid copying of property over wide area. The internet was designed for information to flow freely. Major industry groups have used the Courts to protect their member's content against sharing across the internet. Web site are often made from content from many places. This often lends confusion to the property. The digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) tries to make it illegal to create a work-around for technology used to protect property.

Ethical Issues

Can someone copy for their own use a property protected by law? Will their be continued value in it if everyone does?

Social Issues

The current laws are breaking down in the information age. If routine theft is allowed to continue new information technologies may be slow in coming.

Political Issues

New laws are made regularly all around the world to protect property rights. There are many however who believe that these can never be enforced And that all software should be free.

Accountability, Liability, and Control

Computer Related Liability Problems

Who is liable for economic harm when information systems do not work correctly? In general software producers are hard to hold liable because they fall under works like books that are published. Since software is different than books and users here an expectation of how they should work, these laws may change. Who should be held responsible for offensive Content? The site owner? The person hosting the site? The ISP that acts as a pipe to bring it to a customer? How about Content posted by users of a site?

Ethical Issues

Who is responsible when hardware fails? What Conditions? What liabilities? Should user assume some blame?

Social Issues

Should a firm be responsible to backup of content if its hosting site has equipment failure or should the host be responsible? Can Society permit Networks and bulletin boards to post harmful information?

Political Issues

Here is where providers and users must take their questions of responsibility. Who should be held responsible when information systems have faulty information in than?

System Quality: Data Quality and system Errors

What is an acceptable technological feasible level of system quality? A gray area is when errors could be fixed at great cost and that would make it so costly no one would buy it. Can a software product ever be fully free of bugs? Users need to understand that Software has bugs and no one can estimate what damage they will do and when. Even though software bugs get press, data input quality is the more possible source of problems.

Ethical Issues

At what point can you ethically release software for use by others?

Social Issues

Do we want people to believe a system is infallible? On the other hand do we want people not to use a system at all and be scared of it?

Political Issues

Should governments force software and system quality or let the industry police itself?

Quality of Life: Equity, Access and Boundaries

Computers can Cause problem in deer society a well. They can cause social problems.

Balancing Power: Center versus Periphery

It was felt that with the advent of the mainframe computer that the central office of a firm would keep its hold on the centralization of power. When PCs came into play, it was felt that the power was more evenly distributed. In reality most decisions that do not affect the company were moves to the field units, but serious decision making still takes place at the main centralized location.

Rapidity of Change: Reduced Response Time to Competition

The information technology field has made for more efficient marketing and production in the global marketplace. One has to keep up or be out of business. We are becoming a 'just in time' society.

Maintaining Boundaries: Family, Work, and Leisure

Computers have become so small that work can be done almost anyplace. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Families provide support mechanisms that blurred lines may not hold in place.

Dependence and Vulnerability

With so many people and firms dependent upon technology a system crash could abuse problems.

Computer Crime and Abuse

Computer Crime is the Commission of an illegal act through the use of a computer or against a computer system. This includes accessing a Computer without Authorization as well as with intent to do harm. Computer Abuse involves doing acts that might not be illegal but may be unethical. This includes Spam. Spamming is so inexpensive for what it returns it has become a clogging problem for businesses.

Employment: Trickle -Down Technology and Reengineering Job Loss

Our Current technology allows for a few to do the work of many. But do we have fewer but more technical jobs? What will happen to the blue collar jobs?

Equity and Access: Increasing Racial and Social Class Cleavages

The digital divide is a real thing. The more income you have the more likely you will have a computer. The some is true for the schools in your neighborhood.

Health Risks: RSI, CVS, and Technostress

Repetitive stress disease in the form of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is caused by repetitive striking of keep on the keyboard. Another common problem of computers is computer vision syndrome. Technostress is a problem with how people relate to people after they have used computers. Computers have been so much of a part of our lives these problems will not go away and probably increase.

5.4 Management Opportunities, Challenges, And Solutions

Opportunities

Doing the right thing with information systems in the long am will always lead to a stronger firm though stakeholders may not always be happy.

Management Challenges

Understanding the Moral Risks of New Technology

Rapid technological changes lead to rapid choices that need to be made. Management needs to understand and figure out solutions to these problems before they happen.

Establishing Corporate Ethics Policies that Include Information Systems Issues

All Information Technology departments need to have an ethics policy and commentate this to other managers as well as workers in the firm.

Solution Guidelines

The code of ethics should include:

· Information rights And obligations - develop a policy on e-mail, Internet privacy etc.

· Property rights and obligations - such things as Software ownership and Contract relationship should be Covered

· System Quality - code should describe levels of data quality And error toleration

· Quality of life - system should be to improve life, human dignity as well as deal with medical problem that may develop

· Accountability and control - who is the single person responsible for information systems? what People report to him and what policy and procedures au they in charge of? Who does the audits of the system should be covered as well.