The Importance of Ethics in the Information Technology - Essay Example

IT Ethics Introduction The importance of ethics has risen greatly in the business world during the last decade. The global financial crisis was observed in 2007-2008 which was mainly due to the unethical decision making; this shows how important ethical implications have become. The information technology field is one in which increasing ethical problems are observed. This paper will discuss the information technology profession and the ethical problems that they face. The ethical problems also have ways to resolve them which IT professionals must know of in order to avoid serious threats to the organizations. As there has been a growth in the usage of internet, digital media, and the reliance on the information systems in almost all fields of life, there is an increased need for information technology professionals. These IT professionals are people with advanced training and expertise in the information systems and they are responsible for managing the issues related to IT in organizations (Bott, 2005). IT professionals work in organizations and manage the personal data, storage, file transferring, use of social media, and a number of ethical issues that may arise while handling the information systems. IT professionals are successful when they are involved in different relationships within an organization. They develop a relationship with the employers of the organization where they must regard the enforcing of ethical policies, whistle-blowing, and protecting the data and trade secrets. The relationship they develop with the clients is an important one in which they must ensure the safe sending and receiving of files, and must ensure each party’s successful completion of the IT project. IT professionals are successful when they are able to develop a working relationship where no unethical practice is being performed (Ali, 2001). IT professionals are also responsible for taking care of the society at large and ensuring that no harm is caused by unethical practices. What makes a good IT professional is training, experience, and the ability to act according to the professional code of ethics which promote high standards of ethical behavior, quality decision making, and develops trust and respect from all working relationships (Ali, 2001). Intellectual property is a term used to describe the genius of one’s own mind. The term is gaining increasing popularity in today’s world as it is becoming difficult to protect one’s intellectual property in this digital age (Freeman, 2005). Intellectual property may consist of works of the mind such as arts, songs, books, ideas, or inventions. These works are created and owned by a certain person or a group. There are a number of ways to protect intellectual property such as through copyrights, patents, and trade secret laws. Copyright laws tend to protect the work of individuals, patent laws are used to protect inventions of individuals, and trade secret laws are used to protect certain organizations’ critical information (Freeman, 2005). Managing the copyrights, patents, and trade secret laws can be a complex task for IT professionals. It has been known as one of the biggest ethical problems faced by IT professionals in organizations today. Organizations tend to make or break on the intellectual property issues and most of the liability comes on the IT professional. It is the duty of the IT professional to protect the information and secrets from any sort of leakage or theft (Freeman, 2005). IT professionals are trusted individuals who are responsible for protecting the intellectual property rights of the organization. Ethical problems arise when employees steal the trade secrets and expose them. This can be done through hacking or getting access to official systems. In order to resolve such an issue, the IT professional must first try to resolve the matter internally without publishing reports to the managers. If there is a serious ethical concern regarding trade secrets, immediate action should be taken by seizing all employees’ computers and searching the systems to see from where the secrets are leaked. If the matter is not very big, the IT professional must carry out a check and try to solve the matter internally. If any employee is caught liable for releasing trade secrets, he is ethically and legally punished with economic loss caused due to the leak (Freeman, 2005). The companies’ professional code of conduct decides what the employee would face such as termination or demotion. In order to prevent ethical problems regarding intellectual property, the organization must ensure that the IT professional is trustable and is working under the legal and ethical code of conduct. The trade secrets should be safe with him as it is the duty of the IT professional to protect these secrets in every way possible. Another way to avoid such ethical problems is to form an employee trust and loyalty bond as a strategy of the business. All valuable trade secrets must be kept at one secure place, employees must be educated and told about the importance of these trade secrets and the leakage of these will result in ethical and legal consequences, there should be limited access to the trace secrets of the public, and confidentiality agreements must be signed by all members to bound them from disclosing secrets (Freeman, 2005). Another increasing ethical problem with IT professionals is the protection of clients and workers’ privacy. Privacy issues have existed ever since the internet and social media have been in infancy. Privacy issues are increasing even more now and IT professionals have to ensure that the clients are given complete protection and no unethical practices are being carried out. A number of cases with social media show how privacy issues have created problems for IT professionals (Tavani, 2011). Facebook is the largely used social media website nowadays and it has the responsibility to protect the privacy of its clients. When users enter the social networking websites, they enter their personal information but privacy is granted and protection is provided for personal pictures, information, and activities. IT professionals at these social networks must ensure that their users are provided adequate protection. Facebook has been accused for privacy issues several times as a result of which it has increased its privacy laws. It was found out in 2014 that all users of Facebook were entered in a psychology survey without their permission and their personal information was accessed for the psychology experiment. This is not a matter of privacy laws or security; it is an ethical problem that arose within the organization. The IT professionals must have protected the personal information of the users. Another problem occurred with Facebook when private pictures of users were being shared by other users without their consent (Reynolds, 2014). In response to the increasing privacy issues, Facebook tightened its privacy policies and ensured that no information would be available to any other user until he doesn’t belong to any of the specified groups in the privacy laws. Facebook IT professionals must tighten the laws and ethical considerations of these issues in order to prevent ethical issues from taking place. These ethical issues only create confusion for users and cause skepticism and distrust resulting in customer dissatisfaction (Reynolds, 2014). IT professionals have the duty to monitor and keep a check on the privacy laws and ethical activities within the organization. Anonymous and social hacktivism is a form of hacking but it involves a motivated purpose. The hacktivist uses the same techniques as a hacker and hacks into the computer systems in order bring something of political or social importance into notice (Jordan, 2004). An example is leaving an important social message on the homepage of a website so that more and more people get to read it. The ethical consideration of hacktivism is debatable but there is also ethical hacktivism. Ethical hacktivism consists of hacktivists that hack into a system with the knowledge of the content owner in order to fix a problem. Usually these hacktivists are security professionals and they are getting paid for their services. Ethical issues can also arise when hacktivists hack into systems in order to gain monetary benefit or any other kind of benefit (Jordan, 2004). However, IT professionals must ensure that if hacktivists are being used for social causes, there is an ethical boundary that is not being crossed. Moreover, the IT professional must ensure that the hacktivists are hired by the company and they are acting upon as per the security requirements of the employer. Hacktivism must also be under a balance and hacktivists should be monitored not to act unethically (Reynolds, 2014). Fraud and misrepresentation is also a potential ethical problem that IT professionals face in organizations. Fraud is a criminal activity which deals with the activity of obtaining goods or services by deceiving or tricking someone. Fraudulent misrepresentation is a concept which describes the conscious misrepresentation carried out by a person to make the other person rely on it. Fraudulent misrepresentation is an ethical issue as well as a crime which can be legally questioned in court if there is a misrepresentation of a material fact, if the misrepresentation or fraud was intended to cause harm, if the others relied on the misrepresented information, and if there was an injury or loss caused to the other party (Miller, 2006). In organizations, fraudulent misrepresentation can cause an ethical problem for the IT professional as it is his duty to ensure that the organization acts according to a certain code of ethics and no unethical practices are carried out through the information system (Miller, 2006). An example is the case of unethical issues in Nokia in 2012 when they launched their new Windows phone Lumia 920. A press conference was held in New York City where a video was played to demonstrate the camera technology of the new phone. The video showed a woman bicycling who was shot by a man bicycling besides her using the new Nokia phone. When the video was closely examined, the window behind the woman showed the shadow of a van and a professional camera that was being used to make the video. Nokia reacted to the findings by issuing a disclaimer with the video and a formal apology (Reynolds, 2014). This issue had caused an internal ethical investigation for Nokia as they claimed that it had been a mistake and a disclaimer was to be issued with the video in the first place. This case doesn’t define a pure case of fraudulent misrepresentation, but it does initiate an ethical investigation as the IT professional must have been sure of the video and content before releasing it. The IT professionals face such ethical problems when they do not ensure the contents of videos, messages, or audios before they are released. No organization can be completely safe from attacks; however the best way is to apply prevention techniques (Miller, 2006). The IT professional must ensure that the employees are aware of the basic systems and computer programs. Limited access must be provided to the employees for important data. In order to avoid such unethical practice of failing to place a disclaimer or recheck the video before posting it, employees’ computers and activities must be monitored to check if this was a mistake or done by purpose. The IT professional must guard their passwords, report any unusual activity, ensuring professional and personal data is not mixed up, and applying strict controls. This would educate and create awareness for the employees that they are being monitored and any fraudulent activities would be monitored. The most important ethical problem that should be addressed by the IT professionals immediately and effectively is fraudulent misrepresentation. It is the ethical problem which does not only consist of ethical dilemmas but also legal problems. Organizations that fail to deal with fraudulent misrepresentation tend to suffer legal suits, economic losses, and other actions such as higher employee turnover, bad reputation for the business, and more ethical problems. Thus, IT professionals have to undergo a number of ethical problems when they are dealing in an organization with employees, clients, and the society as a whole. The IT professionals have many duties and responsibilities which have to be fulfilled taking care of the ethical considerations in an organization. The IT professionals are liable for any unethical practices within the business hence they should monitor, maintain a professional code of conduct, and prevent unethical practices from taking place by restricting and limiting access to employees. References Reynolds G. (2014). Ethics in Information Technology. Cengage Learning Freeman L. (2005). Information Ethics: Privacy and Intellectual Property. Idea Group Inc. Tavani H. (2011). Ethics and Technology. John Wiley & Sons Miller R. (2006). The Legal Environment Today. Cengage Learning Jordan T. (2004). Hacktivism and Cyberwars: Rebels with a Cause. Psychology Press Bott F. (2005). Professional Issues in Information Technology. BCS, The Chartered Institute Ali S. (2001). Ethical Issues of Information Systems. Idea Group Inc. Read More