Social, Ethical, and Legal Issues in Information Systems: Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR
Social, Ethical,
and Legal
Issues in
Information
Systems
Management Information Systems
Chapter 4 Social, Ethical, and Legal Issues in the Digital Firm
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you will be able to answer the

following questions:
1. What social, ethical, and legal issues are raised by
information systems?
2. What specific principles for conduct can be used to
guide ethical decisions?
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you will be able to answer the

following questions:
3. Why do contemporary information systems,
technology, and the Internet pose challenges to the
protection of individual privacy and intellectual
property?
4. How have information systems affected everyday life?
Behavioural Targeting: Your Privacy is the Target
Online activity is tracked and ads are displayed

depending on your activity
Behavioural targeting allows businesses and
organizations to more precisely target desired
demographics.
Illustrates the ethical questions inherent in online
information gathering
Example: should we keep an automotive system for medical
records? There are a lot of benefits of having paperless
system, however, there is a chance that someone can hack
into the system and use for their advantage
Behavioural Targeting: Your Privacy is the Target
How much privacy are we willing to give up in order

to receive more relevant ads?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baTiZzg4go8
Understanding Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues Related to Systems
Ethics
Principles of right and wrong that individuals
use to make choices to guide their behaviors
Ethical issues in information systems have
been given new urgency by the rise of the
internet and electronic commerce.
A model for thinking about ethical, social,

and political issues
Society as a calm pond
IT as a rock dropped in pond, creating ripples of new
situations not covered by old rules

Five moral dimensions of the information

age
What information rights do individuals
Information rights
and organizations have with respect to
and obligations themselves? What/how can they
protect?
Who sets the information of the
companies? IT governance

age
What information rights do individuals and
Information rights organizations have with respect to themselves?
and obligations What can they protect?
Property rights & How can traditional intellectual property

rights be protected in a digital society?
obligations
It becomes personal

age
How can traditional intellectual property rights be
Property rights & protected in a digital society?
obligations
Who will be accountable for the harm
Accountability & done to individual information?
Control
Dilemma: you have a driverless car, it
goes crazy and hits a person and kills
them. Who is responsible? The
person who owns the car, the person
who created the software?

age
obligations
Accountability & What
Who standards
will of data
be accountable and
for the system
harm
done to individual
quality should information?
we demand to protect
Control
individual rights?
System Quality There is no prefect software, the
bigger the software, the bigger the
control and issues.

age
obligations
Accountability & Who will be accountable for the harm
done to individual information?
Control
What standards of data and system
quality should we demand to protect
System Quality individual rights?
What values should be preserved in an
information and knowledge-based
Quality of life
society?
Technology trends that raise ethical issues
Trend Impact
Computing power doubles every 18 More organizations depend on computer
month systems for critical operation
Data storage cost rapidly decline Organizations can easily maintain detailed
databases on individuals
Data analysis advances Companies can analyze vast quantities of
data gathered on individuals to develop
detailed profiles of individual behavior.
Networking advances Coping data from one location to another
and accessing personal data from remote
locations are both much easier.
Mobile device growth impact Individual cell phones maybe tracked
without user consent or knowledge.

Ethics in an Information Society
Basic concepts: responsibility, accountability,

and liability
Responsibility
Accepting the potential costs, duties, and obligations

for your decisions
Accountability
Mechanisms for identifying responsible parties

Basic concepts: responsibility, accountability,

and liability
Liability Due process
Permits individuals to Ability to appeal to higher

recover damages done to authorities to ensure laws
them are applied correctly
The rules and procurers'
Ethical Analysis
Ethical Analysis
Candidate ethical principles

1. Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have
them do unto you
2. Immanuel Kants Categorical Imperative: If an

action is not right for everyone to take, then it is
not right for anyone
3. Descartes rule of change: If an action cannot be

taken repeatedly, then it is not right for it to be
taken at any time
Candidate ethical principles

4. Utilitarian Principle: Take the action that achieves
the greatest value for all concerned
Based on utility theory: efficiency and organization
5. Risk Aversion Principle: Take the action that

produces the least harm or incurs the least cost to
all concerned
Automotive companies Volkswagen
6. Ethical no free lunch rule: Assume that all
tangible and intangible objects are owned by
someone else, unless there is a specific
declaration otherwise
Professional Codes of Conduct

Promises by professionals to regulate themselves
in the general interest of society
Broadcast by associations such as the
Canadian Medical Association (CMA),

Canadian Bar Association (CBA),
Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS), and
Association of Computing Machinery (ACM)
Real-World Ethical Dilemmas

Using technology to reduce workforce
Is it ethical?: technology isnt really reducing workforce, it get rids
of the tasks that are simple and moving them to more
complex tasks
Selling subscriber information to advertisers
Is it ethical?:
Employees using corporate IT for personal use
Is it ethical?: some companies have been providing extra time to
do personal activities, the effect of this is innovation
Using IT to monitor employees
Is it ethical?:
The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems
Information rights: Privacy and freedom in the Internet Age

Privacy: Claim of individuals to be left alone, free from
surveillance or interference from other individuals, organizations,
or the state.
Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act
(PIPEDA) establishes principles for collection, use, and
disclosure of personal information
Provinces have parallel legislation to the federal privacy act and
access to information act
Prevent unnecessary distribution of one's personal
information and guarantee access to unrestricted
government information
Quebec is the only province with a privacy law governing the
private sector that meet European Union standards
Significant for international trade
The European Directive on Data Protection

In Europe, privacy protection is much more stringent than in North
America: European countries do not allow businesses to use personally
identifiable information without consumers prior consent
EU member nations cannot transfer personal data to countries that don't
have similar privacy protection regulations
European parliament passed new rule about cookies in 2011 that required
web sites to have highly visible warnings
Safe harbor: private, self-regulating policy and enforcement mechanism
that meets the objectives of government regulators and legislation but does
not involve government regulations or enforcement
Business would be able to use the personal data of customers if the
develop privacy protection policies that meet EU standards
Internet Challenges to Privacy:

Ability to collect data on online activities
Cookies are used to collect information from Web
site visits
Websites using cookies technology cannot
directly obtain visitor's names and addresses
If a person has registered at a site, that information can
be combined with cookie data to identify the visitor
Chapter 4 Social, Ethical, and Legal Issues in Information Systems
Web bugs (Web bugs): tiny software programs that keep a

record of users online clickstream and report this data back
to whoever owns the tracking file invisibly embedded in e-
mail messages and web pages that are designed to monitor
the behavior of the user visiting a web site or sending e-mail
Spyware: can be installed secretly on an interest users
computer by piggybacking on larger applications
Google the worlds largest collector of online user data
More data on more people than any government agency
Canadian firms must not only publish their privacy statements,
they must have contact information to which individuals can
inquire about the privacy policy and their own data as well as
opt-in versus opt-out models of informed consent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I01XMRo2ESg
Copyright 2013 Pearson Canada Inc. 4-27


Technical Solutions
Tools for encrypting e-mail, making e-mail or surfing
activities appear anonymous, preventing client
computers from accepting cookies, or detecting and
eliminating spyware.
For the most part, technical solutions have failed to

protect users from being tracked as they move from
one site to another.
Do Not Track option on browsers

Property rights: Intellectual Property

Intellectual property is intangible property
created by individuals or corporations
Difficult to protect because of computerized
information can be so easily copied or
distributed on networks
Protected by:
Trade secrets
Copyright
Patents
Trade secret: Intellectual work or product belonging to

a business, not in the public domain
Supreme Court test for breach of confidence:
1. information conveyed must be confidential

2. information must have been communicated in
confidence
3. information must have been misused by the party
to whom it was communicated
Copyright: Statutory grant protecting intellectual property from

being copied for at least 50 years
Canadian copyright law protects original literary, musical,
artistic, and dramatic works. It also includes software, and
prohibits copying of entire programs or their parts.
Computer software is protected in Canada as a literary work
Moral rights in Canada include the right of the author of piece
of software to be associated with the software by name or
pseudonym (fictitious name) and right to remain anonymous
include the authors right to the integrity of the software
Drawback to copyright protection is that the underlying ideas
behind a work are not protected, only their manifestation in a
work
A competitor can use your software, understand how it works, and develop
new software that follows the same concepts without infringing on a
copyright
Patent: A grant to the creator of an invention granting

the owner an exclusive monopoly on the ideas behind
an invention for between 17 and 20 years
Granting of a patent is determined by the Patent Office
and relies on court rulings
Key concepts: originality, novelty, and invention
Canadian patent office does not accept applications
for software patents because software is considered to
fall under Canadian copyright law
Strength of patent protection is that it grants a
monopoly on the underlying concepts and ideas of
software
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zT3YeNKyyw
Challenges to Intellectual Property Rights

Perfect digital copies cost almost nothing
Sharing of digital content over the Internet costs almost
nothing
Information can be illicitly copied from one place and
distributed through other systems and networks even though
these parties do not willing participate in the infringement
Illegal file sharing still goes on, it has actually declined since
the opening of the iTunes store in 2001
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (SMCA): implemented a world
intellectual property organization treaty that makes it illegal to
circumvent technology-based protections of copyrighted materials
Accountability, Liability, and Control

Computer-related liability problems
Difficult to hold software producers liable for their software
products
Software users may develop expectations of infallibility about
software; less easily inspected and it is more difficult to
compare with other software products for quality; software
claims actually to perform a task rather than describe a task,
and people come to depend on services essentially based on
software
Websites are not held liable for content posted on their sites
regardless if it was placed there by the web site owners or users
System Quality: Data Quality and Systems

Errors
Individuals and organizations may be held responsible for avoidable
and foreseeable consequences, which they have a duty to perceive
and correct
3 principal sources of poor system performance
Software bugs and errors
Hardware or facility failures caused by natural
or other causes
Poor input data quality
Most common source of business system failure
is data quality
Quality of Life: Equity, Access, and Boundaries

Balancing power: Centralize power in the nations
capital, resulting in a Big Brother Society versus
periphery
Lower level employees may be empowered to make
minor decision, but the key policy decisions can be just
as centralized as in the past
Rapidity of change: Reduced response time to
competition
Maintaining boundaries: Family, work, and leisure
Leisure time spent on the computer threatens these
close social relationships can be harmful that leads to
anti-social behavior

Dependence and vulnerability
If we depend too much on these systems and don't discover an alternative, when
it crashes, everything crashes
Computer crime and abuse
Creating new valuable items to steal, new ways to steal them, and new ways to
harm others
Accessing a computer system without authorization or with intent to do harm,
even by accident, is now a federal crime
Identity theft, advanced fee fraud, scams involving the FBI
Computer abuse: commission of acts involving a computer that may not be illegal
but that are considered unethical
Spam
Still legal if it doesnt involve fraud and the sender and subject of the e-mail
are properly identified
Spam originates from bot networks, consist of thousands of captured PCs
that can initiate and relay spam messages
Seasonally cyclical and varies monthly due to the impact of new
technologies
Costs businesses millions of dollars
Spam filters may block legitimate messages
Tightly regulated in Europe
Chapter 4 Social, Ethical, and Legal Issues in Information Systems
Employment: Trickle-down technology and reengineering job loss

Equity and access: Increasing racial and social class cleavages
Poor and minority in Canada are less likely to have computers or online internet
access even though overall Canadian rates of computer ownership and internet
access
If left uncorrected, the gap between those who have access vs those that dont
gap increases
Public interest groups want to narrow this by making digital information services
available to virtually everyone
Health risks:
Repetitive stress injury (RSI): muscle groups are forced through repetitive
actions often with high-impact loads or tens of thousands of repetitions under
low-impact loads
Largest source of RSI is keyboards, most common kind of RSI is Carpal
tunnel syndrome (CTS)
Computer vision syndrome (CVS): any eyestrain condition
Technostress: stress induced by computer use
Related to high levels of job turnover in the computer industry, high levels
of early retirement from computer-intense occupations, and elevated levels
of drug and alcohol abuse
Copyright 2013 Pearson Canada Inc. 4-39

Social, Ethical, and Legal Issues in Information Systems: Chapter Four

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Social, Ethical, and Legal Issues in Information Systems: Chapter Four

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

CHAPTER FOUR

After reading this chapter, you will be able to answer the

After reading this chapter, you will be able to answer the

Behavioural Targeting: Your Privacy is the Target

Online activity is tracked and ads are displayed

Behavioural Targeting: Your Privacy is the Target

How much privacy are we willing to give up in order

Understanding Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues Related to Systems

Understanding Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues Related to Systems

A model for thinking about ethical, social,

Understanding Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues Related to Systems

Understanding Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues Related to Systems

Five moral dimensions of the information

Understanding Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues Related to Systems

Five moral dimensions of the information

Property rights & How can traditional intellectual property

Understanding Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues Related to Systems

Five moral dimensions of the information

Understanding Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues Related to Systems

Five moral dimensions of the information

Understanding Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues Related to Systems

Five moral dimensions of the information

Understanding Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues Related to Systems

Technology trends that raise ethical issues

Understanding Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues Related to Systems

Ethics in an Information Society

Basic concepts: responsibility, accountability,

Accepting the potential costs, duties, and obligations

Mechanisms for identifying responsible parties

Ethics in an Information Society

Basic concepts: responsibility, accountability,

Liability Due process

Permits individuals to Ability to appeal to higher

Ethics in an Information Society

Ethics in an Information Society

Ethics in an Information Society

Candidate ethical principles

2. Immanuel Kants Categorical Imperative: If an

3. Descartes rule of change: If an action cannot be

Ethics in an Information Society

Candidate ethical principles

5. Risk Aversion Principle: Take the action that

Ethics in an Information Society

Professional Codes of Conduct

Canadian Medical Association (CMA),

Ethics in an Information Society

Real-World Ethical Dilemmas

The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems

Information rights: Privacy and freedom in the Internet Age

The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems

The European Directive on Data Protection

The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems

Internet Challenges to Privacy:

Web bugs (Web bugs): tiny software programs that keep a

Copyright 2013 Pearson Canada Inc. 4-27

The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems

The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems

For the most part, technical solutions have failed to

Do Not Track option on browsers

The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems

Property rights: Intellectual Property

The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems

Trade secret: Intellectual work or product belonging to