Chapter 4 Ethics in Information Systems Quiz (keine Keywords - langer Podcast)

Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems

• TU4: Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems, taught by Prof. Dr. Paul Drews

• Course is part of Information Systems: Theory & Practice

• Intro Case: Smartphone as Big Brother's Friend

  • Explores how smartphones collect and sell location data.
  • Highlights management challenges in data strategy and privacy.
  • Examines potential business solutions like enhanced customer service and increased revenue.
  • Presents ethical dilemmas of invading privacy.

• Learning Objectives:

  • Identify ethical, social, and political issues raised by information systems.
  • Explain principles of conduct for ethical decision-making in information systems.
  • Discuss how contemporary information systems challenge privacy and intellectual property.
  • Analyze the impact of information systems on laws related to accountability, liability, and everyday life.

• Ethical, Social, and Political Issues Raised by Information Systems

  • Recent cases of failed ethical judgment in business (Volkswagen AG, Wells Fargo, General Motors, Takata Corporation).
  • Information systems sometimes used to manipulate decisions and evade public scrutiny.
  • Ethics defined as principles of right and wrong that guide individual moral choices.

• The Wells Fargo Fraud Case

  • $185 million fine in 2016 for unauthorized accounts.
  • 5,300 employees fired.
  • Cross-selling program as central issue
  • Aggressive goals and penalties for failing to hit targets as contributing factor.

• What Ethical, Social, and Political Issues are Raised by Information Systems?

  • Intense social change, challenging existing power structures and obligations.
  • New opportunities for crime, including new crimes that use informational systems.
  • Cybercrime (recent security threat example: Emotet).

• A model for thinking about ethical, social, and political issues

  • Society's response to new situations in rapidly growing digital world can be challenging.
  • Developing new rules, laws, and social etiquette often takes time.
  • Ethics is helpful in making decisions about legally gray areas.

• Ethical, Social, and Political Issues

  • Five moral dimensions of the information age:
    • Information rights and obligations
    • Property rights and obligations
    • Accountability and control
    • System quality
    • Quality of life

• Key technology trends that raise ethical issues:

  • Doubling of computing power every 18 months
  • Increased organizational reliance on computer systems.
  • Rapidly declining data storage costs leading to easy collection and storage of personal data.
  • Networking advances and the Internet enabling data transfer across vast distances.
  • Data analysis techniques leading to profiling and nonobvious relationship awareness (NORA). Combining data from different sources to identify connections between people.

• Basic concepts for ethical analysis

  • Responsibility: accepting costs, duties and obligations in decision-making.
  • Accountability: mechanisms for identifying parties responsible for results.
  • Liability: allowing individuals and firms to recover damages resulting from failures.
  • Due process: ensuring fair legal processes and appeals for decisions.

• Principles to Guide Ethical Decisions

  • Five-step ethical analysis: Clearly describe facts, identify conflict and values, identify stakeholders, consider options and consequences.
  • Candidate ethical principles include the Golden Rule, Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative, the Slippery Slope Rule, the Utilitarian Principle, the Risk Aversion Principle.
  • "No Free Lunch" ethical principle, implying that resources and products have owners unless specified otherwise.

• Professional codes of conduct:

  • Rules established by professional associations to govern behavior and regulate themselves in general societal interest. (Example: American Medical Association, American Bar Association, Association for Computing Machinery)
  • Real-world ethical dilemmas like company interests pitted against worker well-being. (Example: Monitoring employees, Facebook's use of user data.)

• Challenges to Privacy and Intellectual Property (e.g., claims and issues regarding individuals' right to be left alone from surveillance and control over one's personal information.)

  • Information rights within the Internet age.
  • Legal frameworks (First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Privacy Act of 1974, and more).
  • Fair information practices. (collection and use of information).
  • Principles of FTC Fair Information Practices (Notice/awareness, Choice/consent, Access/participation, Security, Enforcement) to address issues in privacy.

• EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and its requirements:

  • Informed consent from customers
  • No data transfers to countries without similar privacy protection.
  • Enforcement with heavy fines.
  • Right to be forgotten

• Challenges to Privacy and Intellectual Property: Internet challenges to privacy (cookies, web beacons)

  • Security threats (spyware) and the use of data for behavioral targeting.

• Challenges to Privacy and Intellectual Property: Business practices in the United States using business practices based on opting out versus opting in.

• Challenges to Privacy and Intellectual Property: Technical solutions (email encryption, anonymity tools, anti-spyware tools, browser features)

• Challenges to Privacy and Intellectual Property: Property rights with intellectual property (intangible and tangible).

• Copyright and patents as protections for intellectual property from being copied.

• Challenges to intellectual property rights (digital media, ease of replication, transmission, alteration, and compactness).

  • Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and its protection for copyrighted materials.

• Information Systems, Laws, and Quality of Life:

  • Accountability, liability, and control relating to computer failures and who is responsible.
  • System quality, including data quality and system errors and ethical challenges surrounding poor system performance.

• Information Systems, Laws, and Quality of Life: Quality

  • Social consequences of information systems, balancing power, rapid change, boundaries of use, dependence and vulnerability, and ethical considerations of employment (reengineering, trickle-down technology), equality and access (digital divide), health risks (RSI, CTS, CVS)

• Tasks for this week:

  • Read chapter 4 (including case studies), case study of Facebook Privacy; case questions.

• Contact information for Prof. Dr. Paul Drews.