Ethical implications

of IT
 What is ethics?
O Ethics is a study of principles, practices, which guides
to decide whether action taken is right or wrong

O It is concerned with the freedom of choice. When an

individual has options, what is the correct moral choice.

O It is about human values and behavior.

O When IT solution is designed it is necessary to check if

it is legally tenable or not besides checking it for
technical, operational, economic feasibility.
 Difference with Morals and Law
O Morals: one’s personal beliefs about right and wrong

O Law: system of rules that tells us what we can and

cannot do
O Laws are enforced by a set of institutions
O Legal acts conform to the law
O Moral acts conform to what an individual believes is the
right belief of right and wrong
 The need for Ethics culture
O If a firm is to be ethical then the top management
should be ethical in whatever it does or says.

O The top managers should lead by an example and see

that its concept of ethics permeates the organization,
filtering down through the ranks to touch every
employee.

O This is Ethics Culture.

O This can be achieved through a corporate credo, ethics

programs, and tailored corporate codes
 Corporate credo
O Example of corporate credo
O Commitment to customer
O Commitment to employee
O Commitment of the employee to the company
O Commitment of the employee to its fellow employee
O Commitment to the community
O Commitment to the stockholder.
 Ethics programs and corporate
codes
O An ethics program consists of multiple activities to
provide employees with direction in carrying out the
corporate credo.

O Many firms have devised their own corporate code of

ethics that may be adaptations of codes for a particular
industry or profession
Ethics and Information Services
O Ethics in IT consists of two main activities:

O the analysis of the nature and social impact of

computer technology; and
O formulation and justification of policies for the ethical
use of such technology
 Ethics and Information Services
O IT threatens the claims to privacy

O Personnel info, telephone no's, credit card nos. gets

disclosed when E-business is carried through web.

O Privacy of employees may be lost due to:

O Employee Information recorded and used without his
consent
O Unethically using cameras, e-mail address.
Ethics and Information Services
O Organization should also follow ethical practices to
protect privacy of individuals

O No secret records of an individual should be kept

O No use of data other than specified
O If other use to be made get the consent from the user.
O Allow individual, right of inspection and correction.
O Organization and processing system is responsible for
maintaining integrity of data.
 Example: Privacy Violation
O E-mail privacy by Epson:

O In march 1990an e-mail administrator Alana Shoars filed a

suit in Los Angelos superior court alleging: “wrongful
termination, defamation, invasion of privacy by her
employer, Epson America Inc.

O She sought $1 million in damages

O She was fired because she questioned the company’s

policy of monitoring and printing employee’s e-mail
messages
 Example: Privacy Violation
O Epson claims: Shoars was fired because she opened
an MCI (mail account without permission)

O Many firms claim that they have full rights to monitor

the e-mail of employees

O They have provided this facility and that is for business

use.

O Debate
Reasons for the Importance of
Ethics in IT
O Logical Malleability: The computer performs exactly as
instructed, so if it’s used for an unethical activity the
computer is not the culprit

O The Transformation Factor: computers can drastically

change the way we do things

O The Invisibility Factor: of internal operations provides the

opportunity for invisible programming values, invisible
complex calculations, and invisible abuse
Social rights and the Computer
O Mason coined the acronym PAPA (privacy, accuracy,
property, and accessibility) to represent society’s
four basic rights in terms of information

O Mason felt that “the right to be left alone” is being

threatened by two forces:
1. the increasing ability of the computer to be used for surveillance
2. the increasing value of information in decision making

O For example, decision makers place such a high

value on information that they will often be willing
to invade someone’s privacy to get it
Social rights and the Computer
O Right to Accuracy: the potential for a level of accuracy
that is unachievable in non-computer systems; some
computer-based systems contain more errors than
would be tolerated in manual systems

O Right to Property: copyright and patent laws provide

some degree of protection

O Right to Access: much information has been

converted to commercial databases, making it less
accessible to the public
 Code of Ethics
O Privacy protection can be achieved by adherence to ACM
(Association of Computing Manufacturers) code of ethics
O General Moral Imperatives : specifies your attitude toward
the society. Talks about the values that we should have
such that we do not harm the privacy of others.

O Professional Responsibilities: achieve highest quality of

professional work. Accept the professional was, honor the
agreement and assign responsibilities. Access the
computing and communication resources when authorized
to do so.
 Code of Ethics
O Organizational leadership imperatives:
O Allocate social responsibility to people and encourage
them to accept them.
O Manage personnel and resources to design and build
information system (which enhances the quality of life)
O Create policies to protect the dignity of users who are
affected by the usage of computers
O Create opportunities for members of organization to
learn the principles and limitations of computer systems
 IS code of ethics
O Many organizations have IS code of ethics. As
manager you should strive to develop an IS specific
set of standards for each of the five moral
dimensions.
O Information rights and obligation: cover topics like
employee e-mail privacy, workplace monitoring, policies
on customer information

O Property rights and obligation: cover topics like s/w

licenses, ownership of firm data, ownership of the s/w
created by employee
 IS code of ethics
O Accountability and control: a code of ethics should
specify a single individual responsible for all information
systems and under this individuals who are responsible
for protection of property rights, system quality , quality
of life.
The liability of officers and the corporation should also
be clearly specified.

O System quality: describe general levels of data quality

and system error that can be tolerated with detail
specification left to specific projects.
 IS code of ethics
O Quality of life: code should state that the purpose of
systems is to improve the quality of life for customers and
for employees by achieving high level of product quality,
customer service, employee satisfaction.