PROFESSIONAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES IN COMPUTING

CAT II –GROUP WORK

i. Explain how computing and information technology give rise to professional issues and
ethical dilemmas

From the first printing press onward, ethical dilemmas have always come with each advancement in
technology. While information technology continues to evolve, so do the decisions business owners and
IT managers must face. Just a few years ago, software piracy was an issue for many businesses, however
that's much less the case today. In the past couple of years, new ethical issues in information
technology have evolved, like how customer data should be protected, and how artificial intelligence
should be used in a way that satisfies, not just the law, but customer's expectations.

Piracy and Changing Ethical Dilemmas in Technology

In some cases, evolution in information technology have a way of removing ethical dilemmas business
owners and IT managers faced just a few years earlier. A case in point is software piracy. Worldwide,
piracy is still an issue, with 37 percent of software on personal computers being unlicensed, according
to the Forrester Group's 2018 BSA Global Software Survey. However, it has become much less of an
issue for businesses. Because malware from pirated software costs companies nearly $359 billion a
year, it makes sense financially to use licensed software. In fact, with proper software management,
companies can increase profits by as much as 11 percent per year.

Data Protection and Privacy

Doing your best to protect customer and employee information from being exposed to the public, or
from being hacked, may seem a no-brainer. However, the line can become fuzzier when the question is
how much do you spend to ensure digital information is safe from prying eyes. Firewalls, encryption
technologies, virtual private networks, or VPNs, as well as hiring security specialists to ensure your data
systems are properly configured, can all require significant investments of capital.

Ransoms and Ransomware

In recent years, the ethical problems in information technology have been complicated even further
with the rise of ransomware attacks. Hackers infiltrate a computer network, take control of it and then
demand payment for a code that will release it. If you don't pay the ransom, you may lose all of the data
stored on your network. Even if you have the data backed up, the time – and expense – of restoring
your network may be more than the cost of paying the ransom. Business owners and IT managers who
pay the ransom do so knowing that it will encourage the hackers to do the same thing to another
organization.

Ethics and Artificial Intelligence

Each year, as advances are made in artificial intelligence, or AI, businesses that use these technologies
will be facing new ethical dilemmas. For example, if you decide to use a chatbot on your website to
assist customers, not only do you have to decide what information you will be collecting from those
customers and how it will be used, you will also have to decide whether or not to tell your customers
that they are interacting with a program rather than a human being.

In other cases, the dilemmas surrounding AI revolve around how it is programmed. Human preferences
and even prejudices can affect how the software behaves. In one instance, an AI tool used by the
Wisconsin Department of Corrections to help determine parole eligibility of inmates showed a distinct
preference for Caucasian men over African-American and Hispanic men. The prejudice was written into
the software by the programmers.

Perhaps the ultimate in ethical dilemmas can be found in how to program self-driving cars. In the event
of a potential collision, the programmers who design the software must decide who to save. Mercedes-
Benz made headlines in 2016, when it opted to always protect the driver first in its AI prototypes – even
if that meant plowing through a group of pedestrians, instead of steering toward an oncoming truck.

ii. Interpret the social context of a particular information technology implementation

concerning professional and ethical issues in computing

Profiling

Combining data from multiple sources to create dossiers of detailed

information on individuals

Nonobvious relationship awareness (NORA)

Combining data from multiple sources to find obscure hidden connections

that might help identify criminals or terrorists

Violation of intellectual property rights, called "infringement" with respect to patents,

copyright, and trademarks, and "misappropriation" with respect to trade secrets, may be a breach

of civil law or criminal law, depending on the type of intellectual property involved, jurisdiction,

and the nature of the action

Ergonomics which is the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions

among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles,

data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system

performance

Privacy concerns with social networking services is a subset of data privacy, involving the

right of mandating personal privacy concerning storing, re-purposing, provision to third parties,

and displaying of information pertaining to oneself via the Internet

Information technology outsourcing is a company's outsourcing of computer or Internet related

work, such as programming, to other companies. It is used in reference to business process

outsourcing or BPO, which is the outsourcing of the work that does not require much of

technical skills

iii. Describe positive and negative ways in which information technology alters the modes of
interaction between people.

Technology is now the most important communication tool for organizations. Technology has
transformed how organizations conduct public relations and marketing, including how they interact with
the media and stakeholders. Graduates with a master’s degree in communication gain skills to guide and
perfect an organization’s use of communication technology to better achieve goals.

1. Traditional Media vs New Media

The rapid development and adoption of new technology has changed the face of communication
through traditional media. The word of the day, according to the Newspaper Association of America, is
innovation. Professional journalists in print and broadcast media have had to compete with amateur
publishers for readers’ limited attention spans. Media organizations that fail to keep current on
communication technology may find themselves swallowed up by other more agile organizations that
can. Web-based and mobile apps like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are often the first places readers
go when they want breaking news. Respondents to Reuters Institute’s 2015 Digital News Report
indicated how individuals consume news:

2. Traditional Marketing Communication vs Digital Marketing Communication

The technology revolution has dramatically altered marketing as well. Companies can no longer rely on
traditional advertising to generate revenue. This trend has resulted in a number of developments in
marketing communication:

Native advertising, which is driving customers to a website by embedding a sponsored link within a news
feed, which offers value-add content

Retargeting ads, which are “sticky ads” that follow users around as they visit other sites

Customer relationship management automation, which allows users to build drip-style email marketing
campaigns based on user triggers

Big data, which has enabled marketers to collect vast amounts of data about their audiences so they can
predict what they might do next

The need to carefully craft a messaging strategy that addresses all stakeholders according to their specific
needs

3. Public Relations in a Digital World

Social media has made public relations (PR) more challenging, but it has also broadened an
organization’s accessibility. Public relations managers must be diligent in the way that communication is
used. In the past, high-ranking officials in an organization may have left most communication outside of
the business to a PR representative. Now each time senior managers interact with stakeholders, the
media and the public, they are vulnerable to misrepresentation. With the proliferation of smart devices
and real-time reporting, PR professionals have to educate and monitor everyone in an organization.
They must also develop crisis communication plans when embarrassing and negative news goes viral
over social media.

4. Devices for Communication Technology

The growing abundance of technological devices means that virtually every person in the company has a
computer at home and a mobile phone in their pockets. It is also commonplace for employees to bring
their mobile devices to work or to conduct work off of them from their home. This practice puts
organizations at risk for data breaches. Even the federal government is adopting this approach, called
BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). The idea that employees might be doing work on their personal devices
means that communications (and IT) professionals must consider how sensitive work-related data might
be used by employees both on and off the clock.

5. Communication in the Workplace

The accessibility that non-technical professionals have to devices and applications raises a question
regarding how businesses practice organizational communication outside their walls. The Institute for
PR (IPR) sees this as an excellent opportunity for communication professionals to “think outside the
firewall.” In other words, communication professionals should consider the merits of making content
available outside of their organization’s private servers. Allowing employees to access digital files and
work email outside of a business firewall might increase productivity.

Communications Degrees and Technology

Communication technology can be a blessing and a curse for businesses. Technology improves
productivity, but it also complicates marketing strategies and public relations, as well as internal
communications. Using the latest technology for the betterment of the organization requires a carefully
thought out communication strategy fed by acquired skills in strategic communication and media
communication analysis – skills that can be obtained by pursuing a Master of Arts in Strategic
Communication.

iv. Describe the Challenge of Integrating Business Ethics into Corporate Culture and Practices in
today’s business world

Many aspects of the work environment influence an individual's decision-making regarding ethics in the
business world. When an individual is on the path of growing a company, many outside influences can
pressure them to perform a certain way. The core of the person's performance in the workplace is
rooted by their personal code of behavior. A person's personal code of ethics encompasses many
different qualities such as integrity, honesty, communication, respect, compassion, and common goals.
In addition, the ethical standards set forth by a person's superior(s) often translate into their own code
of ethics. The company's policy is the 'umbrella' of ethics that play a major role in the personal
development and decision-making processes that people make in respects to ethical behavior.

Human resource management

Human resource management occupies the sphere of activity of recruitment selection, orientation,
performance appraisal, training and development, industrial relations and health and safety
issues.Business Ethicists differ in their orientation towards labor ethics. Some assess human resource
policies according to whether they support an egalitarian workplace and the dignity of labor.

Issues including employment itself, privacy, compensation in accord with comparable worth, collective
bargaining (and/or its opposite) can be seen either as inalienable rights or as negotiable. Discrimination
by age (preferring the young or the old), gender/sexual harassment, race, religion, disability, weight and
attractiveness. A common approach to remedying discrimination is affirmative action.

Once hired, employees have the right to the occasional cost of living increases, as well as raises based
on merit. Promotions, however, are not a right, and there are often fewer openings than qualified
applicants. It may seem unfair if an employee who has been with a company longer is passed over for a
promotion, but it is not unethical. It is only unethical if the employer did not give the employee proper
consideration or used improper criteria for the promotion. Each employer should know the distinction
between what is unethical and what is illegal. If an action is illegal it is breaking the law but if an action
seems morally incorrect that is unethical. In the workplace what is unethical does not mean illegal and
should follow the guidelines put in place by OSHA, EEOC, and other law binding entities.

Potential employees have ethical obligations to employers, involving intellectual property protection
and whistle-blowing.

Employers must consider workplace safety, which may involve modifying the workplace, or providing
appropriate training or hazard disclosure. This differentiates on the location and type of work that is
taking place and can need to comply with the standards to protect employees and non-employees
under workplace safety.

Larger economic issues such as immigration, trade policy, globalization and trade unionism affect
workplaces and have an ethical dimension, but are often beyond the purview of individual companies.

Trade unions

Trade Unions for example, may push employers to establish due process for workers, but may also
cause job loss by demanding unsustainable compensation and work rules.Unionized workplaces may
confront union busting and strike breaking and face the ethical implications of work rules that
advantage some workers over others.[citation needed]

Management strategy

Among the many people management strategies that companies employ are a "soft" approach that
regards employees as a source of creative energy and participants in workplace decision making, a
"hard" version explicitly focused on control and Theory Z that emphasizes philosophy, culture and
consensus.[92] None ensure ethical behavior.Some studies claim that sustainable success requires a
humanely treated and satisfied workforce.

Sales and marketing

Main article: Marketing ethics

Marketing ethics came of age only as late as the 1990s. Marketing ethics was approached from ethical
perspectives of virtue or virtue ethics, deontology, consequentialism, pragmatism and relativism.

Ethics in marketing deals with the principles, values and/or ideas by which marketers (and marketing
institutions) ought to act. Marketing ethics is also contested terrain, beyond the previously described
issue of potential conflicts between profitability and other concerns. Ethical marketing issues include
marketing redundant or dangerous products/services transparency about environmental risks,
transparency about product ingredients such as genetically modified organisms possible health risks,
financial risks, security risks, etc., respect for consumer privacy and autonomy, advertising truthfulness
and fairness in pricing & distribution.

According to Borgerson, and Schroeder (2008), marketing can influence individuals' perceptions of and
interactions with other people, implying an ethical responsibility to avoid distorting those perceptions
and interactions.

Marketing ethics involves pricing practices, including illegal actions such as price fixing and legal actions
including price discrimination and price skimming. Certain promotional activities have drawn fire,
including greenwashing, bait and switch, shilling, viral marketing, spam (electronic), pyramid schemes
and multi-level marketing. Advertising has raised objections about attack ads, subliminal messages, sex
in advertising and marketing in schools.

Emerging issues

Being the most important element of a business, stakeholders' main concern is to determine whether
or not the business is behaving ethically or unethically. The business' actions and decisions should be
primarily ethical before it happens to become an ethical or even legal issue. "In the case of the
government, community, and society what was merely an ethical issue can become a legal debate and
eventually law."Some unethical issues are:

1. Fairness The three aspects that motivate people to be fair is; equality, optimization, and reciprocity.
Fairness is the quality of being just, equitable, and impartial.

2. Misuse of company's times & Resources This particular topic may not seems to be a very common
one, but it is very important, as it costs a company billions of dollars on a yearly basis. This misuse is
from late arrivals, leaving early, long lunch breaks, inappropriate sick days etc. This has been observed
as a major form of misconduct in businesses today. One of the greatest ways employees participate in
the misuse of company's time and resources is by using the company computer for personal use.

3. Consumer Fraud There are many different types of fraud, namely; friendly fraud, return fraud,
wardrobing, price arbitrage, returning stolen goods. Fraud is a major unethical practice within
businesses which should be paid special attention. Consumer fraud is when consumers attempt to
deceive businesses for their very own benefit.
4. Abusive Behavior A common ethical issue among employees. Abusive behavior consists of inflicting
intimidating acts on other employees. Such acts include harassing, using profanity, threatening
someone physically and insulting them, and being annoying.

Production

This area of business ethics usually deals with the duties of a company to ensure that products and
production processes do not needlessly cause harm. Since few goods and services can be produced and
consumed with zero risks, determining the ethical course can be problematic. In some case, consumers
demand products that harm them, such as tobacco products. Production may have environmental
impacts, including pollution, habitat destruction and urban sprawl. The downstream effects of
technologies nuclear power, genetically modified food and mobile phones may not be well understood.
While the precautionary principle may prohibit introducing new technology whose consequences are
not fully understood, that principle would have prohibited the newest technology introduced since the
industrial revolution. Product testing protocols have been attacked for violating the rights of both
humans and animals.[citation needed]With technology growing there are sources and websites that
provide list and information on companies and business and that are "green" or do not test on animals.
These companies often advertise this and are growing in popularity among the younger generations.

Property

Main articles: Private property and Property rights

The etymological root of property is the Latin 'proprius' which refers to 'nature', 'quality', 'one's own',
'special characteristic', 'proper', 'intrinsic', 'inherent', 'regular', 'normal', 'genuine', 'thorough, complete,
perfect' etc. The word property is value loaded and associated with the personal qualities of propriety
and respectability, also implies questions relating to ownership. A 'proper' person owns and is true to
herself or himself, and is thus genuine, perfect and pure.

Modern history of property rights

Modern discourse on property emerged by the turn of the 17th century within theological discussions
of that time. For instance, John Locke justified property rights saying that God had made "the earth, and
all inferior creatures, [in] common to all men".

One argument for property ownership is that it enhances individual liberty by extending the line of non-
interference by the state or others around the person. Seen from this perspective, property right is
absolute and property has a special and distinctive character that precedes its legal protection.
Blackstone conceptualized property as the "sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and
exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in
the universe"

Scenario One

1. Service Director behaving unethical to allow students to compromise the system (5 marks)

No. The service director was not unethical to allow students to discover systems vulnerabilities. She
instructed them to report the weaknesses of the system of which the students did. Since students are
part of the users of the system, it was a good idea to let them discover the weaknesses of the system
for appropriate action to be taken to protect their data. As a service director, it’s your concern to
ensure that the system under use is secure enough for information processing, letting your user
discover system vulnerable is not a bad idea.

2. Students behaving unethical? (5 marks)

Yes. The students were behaving unethical when they continued to exploit the system’s vulnerability.
They should have proposed ways to which the service director can protect the system. Instead of taking
the advantage, they should have actively involved in finding the solution since they were part of
discovering the weakness. Another thing they should have done is to remind the service director that
she had not taken the appropriate action despite that they had reported the vulnerabilities. Instead of
playing the game, they should have utilized the time to do something constructive to protect the
system since the information contained in the system is theirs too. Its unethical to take advantage of a
weakness in the system because the person in charge is unable to correct the weakness

3. Service director behaving unethical by not taking appropriate action regarding the
vulnerability? (5 marks)

Ye. She was behaving unethical by not moving too fast to correct the situation of the system. Her
intention to allow students to manipulate the system to discover the weaknesses was to find the
solution to the discovered problems. If she was unable to find the solution, she should have called for
the help of the students again or someone knowledgeable enough. Her reluctance into finding a
durable solution deems her as unethically behaving professional.

Scenario two

a. Should Smith's superior have told her to ignore the malfunction? (5 marks)

Smith’s superior should have told her to ignore the malfunction. The machine exists due to the
collaboration of the two companies. The software part no matter how correct it is will not meet the
required needs of the user. The malfunction in hardware can cause the whole machine not to perform
correctly. And since the system is used for critical purposes, this can lead to severe problems including
Smith and her superior facing he law.

What the superior should have done is to encourage smith to collaborate with any relevant person in
finding the problem to the malfunctioning parts of the machine. It is unethical to keep silent on a
problem that you have discovered and you know very well that if you engage other people, a solution
can be found instead of waiting to experience the consequences.

b. Should Smith have gone beyond her immediate superior? (5 marks)

Yes, Smith should have gone beyond her intermediate superior to try and find the right person who see
the criticality of the situation. Its ethical to go past your superiors to find a solution to a problem you
see will bring severe consequence if the superiors are not taking the right course of action to find the
solution. If the machines malfunction and its discovered that Smith was aware of the hitch but did not
report appropriately, it can cause her a lot of problems. She ought to have gone beyond the superior
since he/she was not serious enough to deal with the matter.