Transcript Chapter Five - Carl Rebman Associate Professor of Information

Chapter Five
Ethical and Social Impact of
Information Systems
Understanding Ethical and Social
Issues Related To Systems
Ethics – principles of right and wrong
that can be used by individuals acting as
free moral agents to make choices to
guide their behavior
Information rights – the rights that
individuals and organizations have with
respect to information that pertains to
themselves
Five Moral Dimensions of the
Information Age
Information rights and obligations
What information rights do individuals have
with respect to information about
themselves?
Property Rights
How will traditional intellectual property
rights be protected in a digital society in
which tracing and accounting for ownership
is difficult.
Five Moral Dimensions of the
Information Age
Accountability and control
Who can and will be held accountable and liable for
the harm done to the individual and collective
information and property rights?
System Quality
What standards of data and system quality should
we demand to protect individual rights and the
safety of society?
Quality of Life
What values should be preserved in an information
and knowledge-based society?What institutions
should we protect? What cultures and values?
Key Technology Trends that
raise Ethical Issues
The doubling of computing power increases
power, but system errors and poor data quality.
Advances in data storage helps companies and
individuals to obtain and store more private or
protected info/material
Advances in datamining enable people to find
much more information than before
Advances in networking greatly reduces the cost
of the obtaining information and moving
information.
Basic Ethics Concepts
Responsibility – accepting the potential costs,
duties, and obligations for the decisions that
one makes
Accountability – the mechanisms for assessing
responsibility for decisions made and actions
taken
Liability – the existence of laws that permit
individuals to recover the damages done to
them by other actors, systems, or organizations
Due process – a process in which laws are wellknown and there is a system to appeal to higher
authorities to ensure that laws are applied
correctly
Ethical Analysis
Identify and describe clearly 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.
Candidate Ethical Principles
Golden Rule
Immanual Kant’s Categorical Imperative
A principle that if an action is not right for everyone
to take than it is not right for anyone
Descates’ Rule of Change
A principle that states if an action cannot be
repeatedly taken than it is not right to be taken at
any time.(also known as the slippery slope rule)
Candidate Ethical Principles
Utilitarian Principle
Principle that one assumes one can put values in
rank order and understand the consequences of
various courses of action.
Risk Aversion Principle
Principle that one should take the action the
produces the least amount of harm or incurs the
least cost.
Ethical ‘no free lunch’ rule
Assumption that all tangible and intangible objects
are owned by someone else unless there is a
specified declaration otherwise, ie the creator.
Professional Codes of Conduct
Associations comprised of people wishing
to be called professional and recognized
for their expertise and knowledge.
AMA
ABA
DPMA
ACM
Fair Information Practices
Principles
Privacy – the claim of individuals to be left
alone, free from surveillance or interference
from other individuals, organizations, or the
state
FIP – 1973
There should be no personal record systems that are
kept secret
Individuals have rights of access, inspections,
review, and amendment to systems that contain
information about them.
Fair Information Practices
Principles
FIP (1973) Continued
There must be no use of personal information for
purposes other than those for which it was granted
without prior consent
Managers of systems are responsible and can be
held accountable and liable for the damage done by
systems for their reliability and security
Governments have the right to intervene in the
information relationships among private parties.
Know Table 5.2 page 135
Property Rights
Intellectual property
Intangible property created by individuals or
corporations that is subject to protections under
trade secret, copyright, and patent laws
Trade secret- any intellectual work or product used
for a business purpose that can be classified as
belonging to that business, provided it is not based
on information in the public domain
Copyright – a statutory grant that protects the
creators of intellectual property against copying by
others for any purpose for a period of 28 years
Patent – a legal document that grants the owner an
exclusive monopoly on the ideas behind an invention
for 17 years
Internet Challenges to Privacy
Spamming – the practice of sending
unsolicited email and other electronic
communication.
Web pages, content and framing issues
Accountability, Liability, and
Control
The EDS ATM example
The Shell Oil Example
Questions, who is at fault? Who should
pay?
Computer Crime and Abuse
Computer crime
The commission of illegal acts through the
use of a computer or against a computer
system.
Computer Abuse
The commission of acts involving a computer
that may not be illegal but are considered
unethical
Internet Crime and Abuse
Taken from table 5.4 page 147
Hacking – exploiting weaknesses in Web site
security to obtain data or insert viruses.
Jamming – using software to tie up computers
hosting web sites so visitors cannot access site
Malicious software – viruses sent to disable
computers or cause harm
Sniffing – using software to electronically eavesdrop
on communications transmissions
Spoofing – setting up false web sites with the
purpose of obtaining information from unsuspecting
visitors
Health Risks of Computers
 Repetitive stress injury (RSI)
 Occupational disease that occurs when muscle groups are
forced through repetitive actions with high-impact loads or
thousands of repetitive actions with low-impact loads.
 Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS)
 Type of RSI in which pressure on the median nerve through the
wrist bone carpal tunnel structures produces pain
 Computer vision syndrome (CVS)
 Eye strain condition related to computer display screen use
with symptoms including headaches, blurred vision, and dry,
irritated eyes.
 Technostress
 Stress induced by computer use whose symptoms include
aggravations and hostility towards computers and human
Finale: Corporate Code of
Ethics
Addresses
Information rights and privacy
Property rights and information
Accountability and control
System quality
Quality of Life