Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems PDF

Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems SeyedReza Taghizadeh Shiraz University  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems Understanding Ethical and Social Issues Related to Systems...

Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems SeyedReza Taghizadeh Shiraz University  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems Understanding Ethical and Social Issues Related to Systems Ethics (‫)اصول اخالقی‬ Principles of right and wrong that individuals, use to make choices to guide their behavior Information systems and ethics Information systems raise new ethical questions because they create opportunities for: Intense social change, threatening existing distributions of power, money, rights, and obligations New kinds of crime  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems Understanding Ethical and Social Issues Related to Systems A model for thinking about ethical, social, and political issues Society as a calm pond (‫)برکه آرام‬ IT, as a rock dropped in pond, creating ripples of new situations not covered by old rules Social and political institutions cannot respond overnight to these ripples — it may take years to develop etiquette, expectations, laws Requires understanding of ethics to make choices in legally gray areas  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems The Relationship Between Ethical, Social, and Political Issues in an Information Society The introduction of new information technology has a ripple effect, raising new ethical, social, and political issues that must be dealt with on the individual, social, and political levels. These issues have five moral dimensions: information rights and obligations, property rights and obligations, system quality, quality of life, accountability and control.  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems Understanding Ethical and Social Issues Related to Systems Four key technology trends that raise ethical issues Computing power doubles every 18 months Increased reliance on, and vulnerability to, computer systems Data storage costs rapidly declining Multiplying databases on individuals Data analysis advances Greater ability to find detailed personal information on individuals Profiling and nonobvious relationship awareness (NORA) Networking advances and the Internet Enables moving and accessing large quantities of personal data  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems Understanding Ethical and Social Issues Related to Systems Nonobvious Relationship Awareness (NORA) NORA technology can take information about people from disparate sources and find obscure, nonobvious relationships. It might discover, for example, that an applicant for a job at a casino shares a telephone number with a known criminal and issue an alert to the hiring manager.  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems an ethical dilemma and how they would resolve it Ethical analysis: A five-step process 1. Identify and clearly describe the facts Find out who did what to whom, and where, when, and how. In many instances, you will be surprised at the errors in the initially reported facts, and often you will find that simply getting the facts straight helps define the solution.  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems Ethics in an Information Society Ethical analysis: A five-step process 2. Define the conflict or dilemma and identify the higher-order values involved Ethical, social, and political issues always reference higher values. The parties to a dispute all claim to be pursuing higher values (e.g., freedom, privacy, protection of property, and the free enterprise system)  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems Ethics in an Information Society Ethical analysis: A five-step process 3. Identify the stakeholders stakeholders: players in the game who have an interest in the outcome, who have invested in the situation  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems Ethics in an Information Society Ethical analysis: A five-step process 4. Identify the options that you can reasonably take You may find that none of the options satisfy all the interests involved, but that some options do a better job than others.  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems Ethics in an Information Society Ethical analysis: A five-step process 5. Identify the potential consequences of your options Some options may be ethically correct but disastrous from other points of view  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems Ethics in an Information Society Candidate Ethical Principles Golden Rule Do unto others as you would have them do unto you Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative If an action is not right for everyone to take, it is not right for anyone Descartes' rule of change If an action cannot be taken repeatedly, it is not right to take at all  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems Ethics in an Information Society Candidate Ethical Principles (cont.) Utilitarian Principle Take the action that achieves the higher or greater value Risk Aversion Principle Take the action that produces the least harm or least potential cost Ethical “no free lunch” rule Assume that virtually all tangible and intangible objects are owned by someone unless there is a specific declaration otherwise  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems Professional codes of conduct Promulgated(‫ )اعالن کردن‬by associations of professionals E.g. AMA (American Medical Association), ABA (American Bar Association),AITP (Association of Information Technology Professionals), ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Promises by professions to regulate themselves in the general interest of society Real-world ethical dilemmas One set of interests pitted against another E.g., Right of company to maximize productivity of workers vs. workers right to use Internet for short personal tasks  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems Information rights and obligations Privacy Claim of individuals to be left alone, free from surveillance or interference from other individuals, organizations, or the state. Ability to control information about yourself In U.S., privacy protected by: First Amendment (freedom of speech) Fourth Amendment (unreasonable search and seizure) Additional federal statues Privacy Act of 1974  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems Fair information practices (FIP): )‫(آداب عادالنه اطالعاتی‬ written in 1973 by a federal government advisory committee (U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1973). Set of principles governing the collection and use of information Basis of most U.S. and European privacy laws Based on mutuality of interest between record holder and individual Restated and extended by FTC in 1998 to provide guidelines for protecting online privacy Used to drive changes in privacy legislation COPPA /ˈkɔp.pa/ (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) (some privacy protection for consumers of financial services) HIPAA /ˈhɪpə/ (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems FIP principles: Notice/awareness (core principle): Web sites must disclose practices before collecting data Choice/consent (core principle): Consumers must be able to choose how information is used for secondary purposes Access/participation: Consumers must be able to review, contest accuracy of personal data Security: Data collectors must take steps to ensure accuracy, security of personal data Enforcement: Must be mechanism to enforce FIP principles  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems European Directive on Data Protection: Requires companies to inform people when they collect information about them and disclose how it will be stored and used. Requires informed consent of customer: defined as consent given with knowledge of all the facts needed to make a rational decision. not true in the U.S. EU member nations cannot transfer personal data to countries without similar privacy protection (e.g. U.S.)  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems Internet Challenges to Privacy: Cookies Tiny files downloaded by Web site to visitor’s hard drive Identify visitor’s browser and track visits to site Allow Web sites to develop profiles on visitors Web beacon (Web bugs) Tiny graphics embedded in e-mail messages and Web pages usually no larger than 1 pixel x 1 pixel Designed to monitor who is reading a message and transmitting that information to another computer on the Internet captures and transmits information such as the IP address of the user’s computer, the time a Web page was viewed and for how long, the type of Web browser that retrieved the beacon, and previously set cookie values.  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems Internet Challenges to Privacy: Web beacon (Web bugs) Web beacons are placed on popular Web sites by “third party” firms who pay the Web sites a fee for access to their audience. Typical popular Web sites contain 25–35 Web beacons. Spyware Surreptitiously installed on user’s computer May transmit user’s keystrokes or display unwanted ads  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems How Cookies Identify Web Visitors Cookies are written by a Web site on a visitor’s hard drive. When the visitor returns to that Web site, the Web server requests the ID number from the cookie and uses it to access the data stored by that server on that visitor. The Web site can then use these data to display personalized information.  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems Web sites are posting their privacy policies for visitors to review.  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems Technical solutions The Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) Allows Web sites to communicate privacy policies to visitor’s Web browser – user User specifies privacy levels desired in browser settings E.g., “medium” level accepts cookies from first- party host sites that have opt-in or opt-out policies but rejects third-party cookies that use personally identifiable information without an opt- in policy.  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems The P3P Standard P3P enables Web sites to translate their privacy policies into a standard format that can be read by the user’s Web browser software. The user’s Web browser software evaluates the Web site’s privacy policy to determine whether it is compatible with the user’s privacy preferences.  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems Property Rights: Intellectual Property Intellectual property: Intangible property of any kind created by individuals or corporations Three ways that intellectual property is protected Trade secret: Intellectual work or product belonging to business, not in the public domain Copyright: Statutory grant protecting intellectual property from being copied for the life of the author, plus 70 years Patents: Grants creator of invention an exclusive monopoly (‫ )امتیاز انحصاری‬on ideas behind invention for 20 years  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems Challenges to Intellectual Property Rights Digital media different from physical media (e.g. books) Ease of replication Ease of transmission (networks, Internet) Difficulty in classifying software Compactness Difficulties in establishing uniqueness Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) Makes it illegal to circumvent technology-based protections of copyrighted materials  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems Accountability, Liability, Control Computer-related liability problems If software fails, who is responsible? If seen as a part of a machine that injures or harms, software producer and operator may be liable If seen as similar to a book, difficult to hold software author/publisher responsible What should liability be if software is seen as service? Would this be similar to telephone systems not being liable for transmitted messages (so-called “common carriers”)  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems System Quality: Data Quality and System Errors What is an acceptable, technologically feasible level of system quality? Flawless software is economically unfeasible Three principal sources of poor system performance: Software bugs, errors Hardware or facility failures Poor input data quality (most common source of business system failure)  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems Negative social consequences of systems. Quality of Life: Computers and information technologies potentially can destroy valuable elements of our culture and society even while they bring us benefits. Rapidity of change: Businesses may not have enough time to respond to global competition Maintaining boundaries: Computing and Internet use lengthens the work-day, infringes on family, personal time Dependence and vulnerability: Public and private organizations ever more dependent on computer systems  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems Negative social consequences of systems Computer crime and abuse Computer crime: Commission of illegal acts through use of compute or against a computer system – computer may be object or instrument of crime Computer abuse: Unethical acts, not illegal Spam: High costs for businesses in dealing with spam Employment: Reengineering work resulting in lost jobs Equity and access – the digital divide: Certain ethnic and income groups in the United States less likely to have computers or Internet access  Management Information Systems Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems Negative social consequences of systems Health risks: Repetitive stress injury (RSI) Largest source is computer keyboards Carpal(‫ )مچی‬Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) Computer vision syndrome (CVS) Technostress Role of radiation, screen emissions, low-level electromagnetic fields  ‫همه عیب خلق دیدن نه مروت است و مردی‬ ‫نگهی به خویشتن کن که تو هم گناه داری‬ ‫سعدی‬