Kasey Kellogg

Professor Thorland-Oster

EE 394

25 April 2019

Ethics Reflection

Oxford Dictionary defines ethics as “Moral principles that govern a person's behavior or

the conducting of an activity.” In other words, ethics are a guideline for our behavior and actions.

It is extremely important for engineers to have a “Code of Ethics” as our creations and

advancements have the possibility to impact a large number of people and the safety and well-

being of our users is paramount.

Different ethical issues may breach one or many ethical standards, therefore I believe the

first stop to understanding any ethical issue is determining which standards have been violated.

The seconds step is to brainstorm possible solutions or outcomes of the current ethical dilemma.

Is it possible to find a middle ground in which both parties can benefit while preserving the Code

of Ethics? After which the next step is to analyze the possible outcomes or solutions to determine

if they violate any standards as well as how the solution would affect the parties involved. Many

times, there is no clear solution to an ethical dilemma, so the final step is to determine which

solution you believe identifies the most with your own moral and ethical beliefs as well as the

Code of Ethics.

In class we discussed the use of an Amazon Echo to solve a murder case and the parties

and types of data involved in such a case. I believe this is one of the less clear-cut ethical
dilemmas. On one hand the data from the Alexa could help to solve the murder on the other hand

the owner of the Echo and the other people who may have been recorded didn’t consent to

recording of their conversations. For our group this was a particularly challenging decision as

there were many different views and it was further complicated by the two different types of data

available. The metadata which consisted of the time and duration of the conversations and

secondly the conversations themselves. We discussed the possibility that the owner may have

consented to the recording of his conversation in the terms and conditions of the Echo, but that

would lead to the question is it ethical for Amazon to bury something so potentially damaging in

some obscure line of the terms and conditions? I believed the best decision would be to release

only the metadata to the police as it contains no personally identifiable information and is

appropriate in physical conversations when consent is not gained. I believed this to be the middle

ground and best possible outcome for this dilemma. One group member believed that no

information should be shared while another believed the conversation should be shared, if the

Echo owner consented to his conversations being recorded in the terms and conditions, as an

example to other IoT device users of the dangers of this technology. In the end we couldn’t agree

of the most ethical decision.

It was difficult to determine which of the virtues of ethics were most relevant to this case.

The three that I believe belong to this case are “responsibility”, “integrity”, and “fidelity”. There

is a clear responsibility for justice in this case. Someone was murdered, and the victim deserves

justice. Integrity is also at play for law enforcement. If it isn’t ethical to record physical

conversations without consent why is it any less unethical to obtain a conversation from IoT

device obtained without consent. Lastly, I believe fidelity also applies to this case. However,

fidelity was not violated it was upheld. Amazon remained loyal to its customers and didn’t roll
over to law enforcement upholding fidelity. The other three virtues simply didn’t apply to the

case. Self-discipline did not apply as no party “indulged one’s self in excessive behavior” and

there didn’t appear to be an instance of charity in this case. While honesty may apply to the case

as the murderer is clearly being dishonest it does not apply to the ethical dilemma.

I believe that flexibility is another ethical virtue that could apply to this case. While

Amazon may be unwilling to forfeit the recorded conversations themselves, they could be

flexible and share the metadata with law enforcement as it does not contain any personally

identifiable information and would be an ethical middle ground.