ISTP TU04 - Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems PDF

INFORMATION SYSTEMS: THEORY & PRACTICE TU4: Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems Prof. Dr. Paul Drews Intro Case: Your Smartphone: Big Brother’s Best Friend 2 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Learning Objectives ▪ What ethical...

INFORMATION SYSTEMS: THEORY & PRACTICE TU4: Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems Prof. Dr. Paul Drews Intro Case: Your Smartphone: Big Brother’s Best Friend 2 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Learning Objectives ▪ What ethical, social, and political issues are raised by information systems? ▪ What specific principles for conduct can be used to guide ethical decisions? ▪ Why do contemporary information systems technology and the Internet pose challenges to the protection of individual privacy and intellectual property? ▪ How have information systems affected laws for establishing accountability, liability, and the quality of everyday life? 3 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS What Ethical, Social, and Political Issues are Raised by Information Systems? ▪ Recent cases of failed ethical judgment in business ▪ Volkswagen AG, Wells Fargo, General Motors, Takata Corporation ▪ In many, information systems used to bury decisions from public scrutiny ▪ Ethics ▪ Principles of right and wrong that individuals, acting as free moral agents, use to make choices to guide their behaviors 4 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS The Wells Fargo Fraud Case ▪ $185 million fine in 2016 ▪ Employees created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts without their customers’ knowledge or consent ▪ 5,300 employees were fired for their roles in the scandal ▪ The scandal revolved around a cross-selling program the bank had implemented for retail accounts. The goal of the program was to create incentives for customer-facing employees (mostly tellers) to recommend add-on services to existing customers. Aggressive goals were set by management for cross-selling, and stern penalties were put in place for employees that failed to hit their performance targets, up to and including the loss of one’s job. ▪ Video about how they proceeded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4I3SyLmfNM 5 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS What Ethical, Social, and Political Issues are Raised by Information Systems? Information systems raise new ethical questions because they create opportunities for: ▪ Intense social change, threatening existing distributions of power, money, rights, and obligations ▪ New opportunities for crime ▪ New kinds of crime 6 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Cybercrime / Recent Security Threat: Emotet 7 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Source: trendmicro.com A model for thinking about ethical, social, and political Issues ▪ Society as a calm pond ▪ IT as 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 8 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Image Source: https://www.columbacommunity.com 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 Figure 4-1 9 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Ethical, Social, and Political Issues Key technology trends that raise ethical issues: ▪ Doubling of computing power every 18 months ▪ More organizations depend on computer systems for critical operations. ▪ Rapidly declining data storage costs ▪ Organizations can easily maintain detailed databases on individuals. ▪ Networking advances and the Internet ▪ Copying data from one location to another and accessing personal data from remote locations are much easier. 10 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Ethical, Social, and Political Issues Key technology trends that raise ethical issues: ▪ Advances in data analysis techniques ▪ 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 ▪ Mobile device growth ▪ Tracking of individual cell phones 11 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS 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. Figure 4-2 12 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Basic concepts for ethical analysis Responsibility: ▪ Accepting the potential costs, duties, and obligations for decisions Accountability: ▪ Mechanisms for identifying responsible parties Liability: ▪ Permits individuals (and firms) to recover damages done to them Due process: ▪ Laws are well-known and understood, with an ability to appeal to higher authorities 13 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Principles to Guide Ethical Decisions Five-step ethical analysis 1. Identify and clearly describe the facts. 2. Define the conflict or dilemma and identify the higher-order values involved. 3. Identify the stakeholders. 4. Identify the options that you can reasonably take. 5. Identify the potential consequences of your options. Source: ethicsforadversaries.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/dlbrt-steal-data-lose-ethics.gif 14 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Principles to Guide Ethical Decisions 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. ▪ Slippery Slope Rule ▪ If an action cannot be taken repeatedly, it is not right to take at all. ▪ Utilitarian Principle ▪ Take the action that achieves the higher or greater value. 15 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Principles to Guide Ethical Decisions ▪ Risk Aversion Principle ▪ Take the action that produces the least harm or 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. 16 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Source: thecaptivecity.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/ethics.gif Principles to Guide Ethical Decisions Professional codes of conduct ▪ Promulgated by associations of professionals ▪ Examples: American Medical Association (AMA), American Bar Association (ABA), Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) ▪ Promises by professions to regulate themselves in the general interest of society Real-world ethical dilemmas ▪ One set of interests pitted against another ▪ Example: Monitoring employees: Right of company to maximize productivity of workers versus workers’ desire to use Internet for short personal tasks ▪ Facebook provides useful services for users but monitors user behavior and sells information to advertisers and app developers 17 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Example for a Professional Code of Conduct 18 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Challenges to Privacy and Intellectual Property 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 state; claim to be able to control information about yourself Source: hightechforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/privacy1.jpg 19 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Challenges to Privacy and Intellectual Property In the United States, privacy protected by: ▪ First Amendment (freedom of speech and association) ▪ Fourth Amendment (unreasonable search and seizure) ▪ Additional federal statues (e.g., Privacy Act of 1974) 20 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Challenges to Privacy and Intellectual Property Fair information practices: ▪ 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 ▪ Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act ▪ HIPAA 21 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Challenges to Privacy and Intellectual Property Principles of FTC Fair Information Practice: ▪ 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 and contest accuracy of personal data. ▪ Security ▪ Enforcement 22 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) ▪ Requires unambiguous explicit informed consent of customer ▪ EU member nations cannot transfer personal data to countries without similar privacy protection ▪ Applies across all EU countries to any firms operating in EU or processing data on EU citizens or residents ▪ Strengthens right to be forgotten ▪ Privacy Shield: All countries processing EU data must conform to GDPR requirements ▪ Heavy fines: 4% of global daily revenue 23 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS 24 | ISTP | TU 4 | ETHICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS https://www.enforcementtracker.com Challenges to Privacy and Intellectual Property Internet challenges to privacy: ▪ Cookies ▪ Identify browser and track visits to site ▪ Super cookies (Flash cookies) ▪ Web beacons (Web bugs) ▪ Tiny graphics embedded in e-mails and Web pages ▪ Monitor who is reading e-mail message or visiting site 25 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Source: vpnfaqs.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/web-beacons.jpg How Cookies Identify Web Visitors Figure 4-3 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 1. The Web server reads the user's Web browser and determines the operating system, browser name, version access the data number, Internet address, and other information. stored by that server 2. The server transmits a tiny text file with user identification information called a cookie, which the user's browser on that visitor. The receives and stores on the user's computer. Web site can then use these data to 3. When the user returns to the Web site, the server requests the contents of any cookie it deposited previously in display personalized the user's computer. information. 4. The Web server reads the cookie, identifies the visitor, and calls up data on the user. 26 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Challenges to Privacy and Intellectual Property ▪ Spyware ▪ Surreptitiously installed on user’s computer ▪ May transmit user’s keystrokes or display unwanted ads ▪ Google services and behavioral targeting 27 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Source: weblizar.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/google-products.png Challenges to Privacy and Intellectual Property ▪ The United States allows businesses to gather transaction information and use this for other marketing purposes. ▪ Opt-out vs. opt-in model ▪ Online industry promotes self-regulation over privacy legislation. ▪ However, extent of responsibility taken varies: ▪ Complex/ambiguous privacy statements ▪ Opt-out models selected over opt-in ▪ Online “seals” of privacy principles 28 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Challenges to Privacy and Intellectual Property Technical solutions ▪ E-mail encryption ▪ Anonymity tools ▪ Anti-spyware tools ▪ Browser features ▪ “Private” browsing ▪ “Do not track” options Source: mozilla.org/media/img/firefox/private-browsing/private-browsing-meta.680a2e07b109.png 29 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Challenges to Privacy and Intellectual Property Property rights: Intellectual property ▪ Intellectual property: Tangible and intangible products of the mind created by individuals or corporations ▪ Four main 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 on ideas behind invention for 20 years ▪ Trademarks 30 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Challenges to Privacy and Intellectual Property Challenges to intellectual property rights ▪ Digital media different from physical media (e.g., books) ▪ Ease of replication ▪ Ease of transmission (networks, Internet) ▪ Ease of alteration ▪ Compactness ▪ Difficulties in establishing uniqueness Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) ▪ Makes it illegal to circumvent technology-based protections of copyrighted materials 31 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Information Systems, Laws, and Quality of Life Accountability, liability, control ▪ Computer-related liability problems: If software fails, who is responsible? ▪ If seen as part of machine that injures or harms, software producer and operator may be liable. ▪ If seen as similar to book, difficult to hold author/publisher responsible. ▪ What should liability be if software seen as service? Would this be similar to telephone systems not being liable for transmitted messages? 32 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Information Systems, Laws, and Quality of Life System quality: Data quality and system errors ▪ What is an acceptable, technologically feasible level of system quality? ▪ Flawless software is economically unfeasible. Source: s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/11/df/92/11df929025b42348e9d3db9e19afa3f3.jpg 33 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Information Systems, Laws, and Quality of Life ▪ 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) Source: code-epicenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/bug.jpg 34 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Information Systems, Laws, and Quality of Life Quality of life: Equity, access, boundaries ▪ Negative social consequences of systems ▪ Balancing power: although computing power decentralizing, key decision making remains centralized ▪ Rapidity of change: businesses may not have enough time to respond to global competition ▪ Maintaining boundaries: computing, Internet use lengthens work-day, infringes on family, personal time ▪ Dependence and vulnerability: public and private organizations ever more dependent on computer systems 35 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Information Systems, Laws, and Quality of Life Computer crime and abuse ▪ Computer crime: commission of illegal acts through use of computer 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 36 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Source: now.symassets.com/now/en/GB_SITE/pu/images/Non-Product/Misc/img_cyber_criminal_283x229.png Information Systems, Laws, and Quality of Life ▪ Employment ▪ Reengineering work resulting in lost jobs ▪ Trickle-down technology ▪ Equity and access—the digital divide ▪ Certain ethnic and income groups in the United States less likely to have computers or Internet access 37 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Information Systems, Laws, and Quality of Life Health risks ▪ Repetitive stress injury (RSI) ▪ Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) ▪ Largest source is computer keyboards ▪ Computer vision syndrome (CVS) ▪ Eyestrain and headaches related to screen use ▪ Technostress ▪ Aggravation, impatience, fatigue Source: cr-consult.de/fileadmin/user_upload/social-1206612_640.png 38 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Tasks for this week T4-1. Please actively read chapter 4 - including the case studies. (3-4 hours) T4-2. Case Study: Facebook Privacy: Your Life for Sale As part of T4-1, you already read the Facebook case study (pp. 189-191). You find these pages in the folder “Downloads”. Answer all questions (4-13…4-16) for this case. Please post your answer to question 4-16 in moodle in the respective forum. (1 hour) T4-3. OPTIONAL: Data Ethics – Read the Exec Summary of the “Opinion of the Data Ethics Commission” In autumn 2019, the German Data Ethics Commission published an opinion paper which discusses ethical issues of the increasing use of data and artificial intelligence. You can access the long version as well as the exec summary here: https://www.bmjv.de/DE/Themen/FokusThemen/Datenethikkommission/Datenethikkommission_EN_node.html THIS TASK (T4-3) IS OPTIONAL. Its content will not be part of the exam. 39 | ISTP | TU 4 | EHTICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS | PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS CONTACT PROF. DR. PAUL DREWS Institute of Information Systems Universitätsallee 1 | 21335 Lüneburg Fon 04131.677-1993 | [email protected] www.leuphana.de/institute/iis/personen/paul-drews