PRINCIPLES OF IT

ITBP 103

UNIT 8
ETHICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Spring 2021 CIT, UAE University

2 Unit Objectives

 In this chapter we will discuss:

 What ethical, social, and political issues are raised by IS?
 What specific principles for conduct can be used to guide ethical
decisions?
 Why do contemporary IS technology and Internet pose
challenges to protection of individual privacy and intellectual
property?
 How have IS’s affected everyday life?

CIT, UAEU.
3 Unit Contents

1. Understanding Ethical and Social Issues

2. Information Systems and Ethics
3. Key Technological Trends that Raise Ethical
Issues
4. Basic Concepts for Ethical Analysis
5. Moral Dimensions of IS

CIT, UAEU.
4 Understanding Ethical and Social Issues

 Ethics
 Principles of right and wrong that individuals use to
make choices to guide behavior
5 Information Systems and Ethics

 Rise of Internet and electronic commerce

 Ethical issues in IS became very important
because:
 Easier to distribute information (books,
movies, music)
 Concerns about appropriate use of
customer information
 Personal privacy
 Protection of intellectual property
6 Information Systems and Ethics

 IS raise new ethical

questions because it creates:
 Social change
 Threatening existing
distribution of power
(Technology is certainly putting
more power in the hands of
users)
 New kinds of crimes
7 Information Systems and Ethics

 Society as pond

 IT is rock dropped in pond,

creating ripples
8 Information Systems and Ethics

 Social and Political institutions cannot respond

immediately to ripples
 May take years to develop etiquette, expectations,
laws
 Often require the demonstration of real harm
before they act
 Requires understanding of ethics to make choices
in legally gray areas
 Ethical
gray areas: when the border between right and
wrong behavior is blurred in a business or company
9 Key Technological Trends that Raise Ethical Issues

 Doubling of computer power

 Each year we become more dependent on computers
and computer become more powerful 
 More organizations depend on systems for critical
operations (health care, education)
 Rapidly declining data storage costs
 Organizations can easily maintain detailed databases
on individuals
10 Key Technological Trends that Raise Ethical Issues

 Networking advances and Internet

 Copying, accessing personal data from remote locations much easier
 Advances in Data Analysis Techniques
 Profiling
 Combining data from multiple sources to create dossiers of

information on individuals
 Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness (NORA)
 Combining data from multiple sources to find obscure hidden

connections
 Used by government and private sector

 Help identify criminals

11 Nonobvious Relationship Awareness (NORA)
12 Basic Concepts for Ethical Analysis

 Responsibility
 Accepting potential costs, duties, and obligations for decisions you
make
 Individuals are responsible for the consequences of their actions
 Accountability
 Identifying responsible parties
 Systems and institutions in which it is impossible to find out who took what
action are incapable of ethical analysis or ethical action
 Liability
 Permits individuals to recover damages done to them
 Due process
 Laws well known and understood and there is an ability to appeal to
higher authorities to ensure that the laws are applied correctly
13 Moral Dimensions of IS

 The introduction of new information technology

has a ripple effect, raising new ethical issues that
must be dealt with on different levels
 These issues have four moral dimensions:
1. Information rights: Privacy and Freedom
2. Property rights: Intellectual Policy
3. System quality
4. Quality of life
14 Information Rights: Privacy and Freedom

 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
15 Fair Information Practices (FIP)

 Set of principles governing collection and use of

information
 Based on mutuality of interest between record holder and
individual
 The individual has an interest in engaging in a transaction,
and the record keeper—usually a business or government
agency—requires information about the individual to
support the transaction
 Once information is gathered, the record may not be used
to support other activities without the individual’s consent
16 FIP Principles

 Notice/Awareness
 Web sites must disclose practices before collecting data
 Choice/Consent (approval)
 Consumers must be able to approve data collection and
choose how information is used for secondary purposes
 Access/Participation
 Consumers must be able to review, contest the accuracy
of personal data
 Providea way to alter, or even possibly delete the data you
hold about end users
17 FIP Principles

 Security
 Data collectors must take steps to ensure accuracy,
security of personal data
 Enforcement
 Must be mechanism to enforce FIP principles
18 Information Rights: Privacy and Freedom

 Businesses are allowed to gather transaction

information and use for other purposes
 Websites need to provide protection
19 Information Rights: Privacy and Freedom

 Extent of responsibility varies

 Statements of information use
 Opt-out selection boxes
 Online “seals” of principles
20 Information Rights: Privacy and Freedom

 Most Web sites do not have any privacy policies

21 Information Rights: Technical Solutions

 The Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P)

 Site communicates privacy policy with browser
 User specifies privacy levels desired
22 Property Rights: Intellectual Policy

 Intellectual property: Intangible assets created by

individuals or corporations
 Information technology has made it difficult to
protect intellectual property because computerized
information can be so easily copied or distributed
on networks
23 Property Rights Intellectual Policy

 Three main ways that intellectual

property is protected
 Trade secret: Intellectual work or
product belonging to business, not in
the public domain
 Copyright: Protects IP from being
copied for life of author, plus 70 years
 Patents: Grants creator of invention
exclusive monopoly on ideas behind
invention for 20 years
24 Challenges to IP Rights

 Digital media different from physical media in terms

of:
 Ease of replication, transmission and alteration
 Compactness: making theft easy
 Difficulties in establishing uniqueness

 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)

 Protects firms from liability for copyright violation by
their users
25 System Quality

 If software fails, who is responsible?

 If part of machine that injures or harms
26 System Quality

 What is acceptable, feasible level of quality?

 Flawless software is economically unfeasible
 Three principal sources of poor system
performance
1. Software bugs, errors
2. Hardware or facility failures
3. Poor input data quality
27 Quality of Life: Negative Social Consequences

 Balancing power
 Technology is certainly putting more power in the hands of
users
 Speed of change
 Businesses may not have time to respond to global competition
 Maintaining boundaries
 Computing and Internet use lengthens work-day, affecting
family and personal time
 Dependence and vulnerability
 Organizations dependent on systems
28 Quality of Life: Negative Social Consequences

 Employment
 Reengineering (redesigning) work resulting in lost
jobs
 Equity and access
 Certain ethnic and income groups are less likely to
have computers or Internet access
29 Quality of Life: Negative Social Consequences
Health Risks

 Repetitive stress injury (RSI)

 Largest source is computer keyboards
 Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS): a painful condition
of the hand and fingers caused by compression of a
major nerve where it passes over the carpal bones
through a passage at the front of the wrist.
30 Quality of Life: Negative Social Consequences
Health Risks

 Computer vision syndrome (CVS)

 Symptoms (which are usually temporary):
 Headaches
 Blurredvision
 Dry and irritated eyes
31 Quality of Life: Negative Social Consequences
Health Risks

 Technostress
 Stress or illness caused by working with computer
technology on a daily basis.
 Symptoms:
 Unfriendliness toward humans
 Impatience
 Fatigue
32 Quality of Life: Negative Social Consequences
Health Risks

 Role of radiation, screen emissions, low-level

electromagnetic fields