Professional Documents
Culture Documents
MIS ch04 2024
MIS ch04 2024
Chapter 4
Copyright © 2020, 2018, 2016 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Learning Objectives
4.1 What ethical and social issues are raised by IS?
Copyright © 2020, 2018, 2016 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
What is Ethics ?
– Principles of right and wrong people use to make choices
to guide their behaviors
– Ethics is about individual choice: When faced with
alternative courses of action, what is the correct moral
choice?
– Right and Wrong change over time, place…
Copyright © 2020, 2018, 2016 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Ethics and Technology
• Technology can be a double-edged sword: it can be used to achieve
social progress, but also to commit crimes and threaten social values.
Copyright © 2020, 2018, 2016 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Ethics and Technology
Copyright © 2020, 2018, 2016 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Figure 4.1 Nonobvious Relationship
Awareness (NOR A)
Copyright © 2020, 2018, 2016 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Moral dimensions of the digital age
• ICT development raise new ethical, social, and political issues and
challenges.
Copyright © 2020, 2018, 2016 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Moral dimensions of the digital age
3. Accountability and control: Who will be held accountable and liable for the
harm done because of IT related decisions and actions ?
4. System quality: Which ethical considerations should accompany the design and
implementation of IT. This includes issues such as system reliability, accuracy,
security, usability, and accessibility
Copyright © 2020, 2018, 2016 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Responsibility, Accountability, and Liability
• Addressing ethical concerns related to IT requires a holistic approach that
encompasses several key components:
• Examples:
1. Identify and clearly describe the facts: Find out who did what to
whom, and where, when, and how
1. Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Copyright © 2020, 2018, 2016 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Ethical Principles (2 of 2)
• Utilitarian Principle: Take the option that produces the greatest good for
the greatest number of people.
• Risk Aversion Principle: Take the action that produces the least harm or
cost, even if it may not have the highest potential for benefit or gain.
– Assume that virtually all tangible and intangible objects are owned by
someone unless there is a specific declaration otherwise. This means
that if someone creates or acquires something, he have legal
ownership over it, and others are not allowed to use or dispose of it
without his permission.
Copyright © 2020, 2018, 2016 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
How IS affected Information Rights ?
Individuals have the right to control the collection, use, and disclosure of
their personal information.
• Internet challenges to privacy arise from various tools used to track online
behavior. Some common tools for tracking online behavior include:
Web beacons: small, invisible images that are embedded in web pages
or emails. They provide information about user behavior to third parties
without the user's knowledge or consent.
Copyright © 2020, 2018, 2016 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Technical solutions to protect privacy
• Besides legislations, technical solutions to protect privacy include:
– Anti-spyware tools
• Even after selecting the Do Not Track option, websites are not legally
obligated to honor their visitors’ requests not to be tracked.
• Overall, technical solutions have failed to protect users from being tracked
from one site to another
Copyright © 2020, 2018, 2016 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
How IS affected Property Rights ?
• Creators and owners of information have the right to control the use and
distribution of their intellectual property. Others have the obligation to
respect these rights and obtain proper authorization before using or
reproducing protected information.
– Ease of replication
– Ease of alteration
– Compactness
Copyright © 2020, 2018, 2016 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
How IS affected laws for establishing
accountability and liability?
• When a software is part of a machine, and the machine hurts someone
physically or economically. Who is liable the producer of the software or
the manufacturer of the machine ? Should Facebook or Twitter be held
liable and accountable for the posting of pornographic material or racial
insults, or should they be held harmless against any liability for what
users post ?
• The gray area is that some system errors are foreseeable and correctable
only at very great expense, an expense so great that pursuing this level of
perfection is not feasible economically. So in gray areas, what should
organizations do?.
Copyright © 2020, 2018, 2016 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved