Transcript 5. ETHICAL & SOCIAL IMPACT OF IS SYSTEMS

Ethical and Social Issues
Ethics
Principles of right and wrong used by
individuals as free moral agents to guide
behavior
Moral dimensions of the
information age
Information rights & obligations
Property rights
Accountability & control
System quality
Quality of life
Technology trends & ethical issues
Computing power doubles every 18 months
Advances in data storage
Advances in data mining techniques
Advances in telecommunications
infrastructure
Ethics in an information society
 Responsibility: accepting costs, duties, obligations
for decisions
 Accountability: assessing responsibilities for
decisions & actions
 Liability: must pay for legal damages
 Due process: insures laws are applied properly
Ethics in an information society
Ethical analysis:
 Identify, describe facts
 Define conflict, identify values
 Identify stakeholders
 Identify options
 Identify potential consequences
Ethics in an information society
Ethical principles:
 Treat others as you want to be treated
 If action not right for everyone, not right For
anyone
 If action not repeatable, not right at any time
 Put value on outcomes, understand consequences
 Incur least harm or cost
 No free lunch
Information rights
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Privacy: right to be left alone
Fair information practices (FIP):
No secret personal records
Individuals can access, amend information about them
Use info only with prior consent
Managers accountable for damage done by systems
Governments can intervene
Intellectual property
 Intellectual property: intangible creations protected by law
 Trade secret: intellectual work or product belonging to
business, not in public domain
 Copyright: statutory grant protecting intellectual property
from copying by others
 Trade Mark: legally registered mark, device, or name to
distinguish one’s goods
 Patent: legal document granting owner exclusive monopoly on
an invention for 17 years
ACCOUNTABILITY, LIABILITY &
CONTROL
 ETHICAL ISSUES: who is morally responsible for
consequences of use?
 SOCIAL ISSUES: what should society expect and
allow?
 POLITICAL ISSUES: To what extent should
government intervene, protect?
DATA QUALITY & SYSTEM ERRORS
 ETHICAL ISSUES: when is software or service
ready for release?
 SOCIAL ISSUES: can people trust quality of
software, services, data?
 POLITICAL ISSUES: should congress or industry
develop standards for software, hardware, data
quality?
QUALITY OF LIFE
 CENTRALIZATION VS.
DECENTRALIZATION
 RAPID CHANGE: reduced
response time to competition
 MAINTAINING BOUNDARIES:
family, work, leisure
 DEPENDENCE AND
VULNERABILITY
 COMPUTER CRIME & ABUSE
 EMPLOYMENT: trickle-down
technology; reengineering job
loss
 EQUITY & ACCESS: increasing
racial & social class cleavages
 HEALTH RISKS:
Repetitive stress injury (RSI)
Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS)
Computer vision syndrome (CVS)
Technostress: irritation,
hostility, impatience, enervation,
fear
 VDT radiation
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Liability on the internet
 Libel
 Copyright infringement
 Pornography
 Fraud
 Jurisdiction?
 Seek legal advice before developing web site...
Exercise
 The text discusses five steps of ethical analysis:
 Identify and 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.
 Select a problem from your employment – preferably
information systems related – and apply these steps to help
reach a solution.