IT Ethical Issues - Essay Example

Ethics and IT Name Course Lecturer Date Introduction Ethics refers to the standards which base the right or wrong of what individuals ought to do especially in terms of the benefits, fairness, obligations and virtues which are specific to the society (Smith, 2002). Ethics, for example, refers to the standards which lead to people refraining from doing evil. Ethics refers to the development and the study of personal ethical standards, ethics involved in the community from how a society behaves, feels, laws, and its social habits as well as norms which may deviate from universally known ethical standards. It is therefore necessary to regularly examine one’s standards so as to ensure that they are acceptable and well-founded (Tavani, 2001). Ethics can also be defined as the continuous study of our own moral beliefs and conduct whereas striving to ensure that we are able to shape and live up to standards which are reasonable and firmly based for the human beings progress (Cappel, 1995). Ethical standards therefore include the virtues of honesty, compassion, loyalty as well as the standards relating to rights as discussed above (Cappel, 1995). IT Ethical Issues The evaluation and analysis of the impact of a new technology can be very difficult. IT does not only involve technological aspects, but also epistemology since the main component of ICT is information which represents data, information, and knowledge (Johnson, 2001). IT assists and extends the ability of individuals to confine, store, develop, realize, apply, generate, and disintegrate information at a speed and scale which had never been thought possible before. Some of the impact and changes of IT are obvious, but many are restrained. Various issues that have arisen from the adoption of IT are as follows: There is the issue of unemployment where the automation of work has caused creative destruction by eliminating some vocations and creating new ones (Baase, 1997). Crime has highly increased through IT as millions of dollars are stolen each year due to the stolen and counterfeit ATM cards (Pearson et al., 1997), which has been by anonymity which has resulted to new methods used in crimes and simplifies the level of crimes to an easy way. Due to the transactions been recorded in different databases private or public sectors such as banks, hospitals the level of privacy has deprived, i.e. if the information is not securely guarded it can leak to unauthorized individuals. Errors are one of the another ethical issue associated with IT, as sometimes the computer programmes used to offer information contain a large number of errors, which really if not observed gives wrong and misleading information about an individual or organization(Walters, 2001). If information and programs errors are not accurately and sensitively observed may result to financial losses or even loss of lives. Piracy is another issue brought by IT where millions of software are illegally copied yearly, which lead to great financial losses to owners of the software, where they loose millions of dollars to fraudsters. This phenomenon has a great impact on the software industry in the region. To maintain the progress of technology among the foreign and local software industries intellectual property and investment rights should be enacted and huge fine penalties involved to curb crime of piracy (Laudon, 1995). Thus through enacting the rights the innovation and invention under ICT grow broadly. According to (Kallman & Grillo, 1996) the freedom of speech and press has affected the individuals constitutional rights through the problems associated with it such a pornography, censorship, libel and harassment which has brought a negative effect to the society. Cybercrime is also an issue which arose as a result of IT and it take various forms, including theft, fraud, extortion, crimes against persons, sales of drugs and contraband, and cyber-terrorism (Baase, 1997). Computer Crime Survey conducted by the Computer Security Institute confirmed that the threat from computer crime and information security breaches continued unabated, and that the financial toll was mounting. The systems that are particularly vulnerable to cybercrime are national critical infrastructures, computer networks, electronic governance systems, online justice and medical emergency systems(Walters, 2001). Cybercrime is borderless and doesn’t respect national borders. It therefore requires cooperation, pro-activeness in supporting the globe in dealing with its consequences (Laudon, 1995). It is therefore critical to have new ethical policies for the current times of information technology age to urgently fill the rapidly increasing “policy vacuums” (Johnson, 2001). However, filling such vacuums is a complex social process that requires the active participation of individuals, organizations, and governments too (Cappel, 1995). It has come to a concern that digital evolving has led to societal discrimination between the rich and the poor which now has to involve the government to subsidize the programs (Pearson et al., 1997). Thus following the existing standards s by the professional bodies thus the IT professional should provide quality programs with fewer faults to avoid hardship to the user. In conclusion, according to (Johnson, 2001) difficult and complex questions have been raised regarding freedom of expression to access information thus creating a digital convergence in the emerging knowledge society has raised complex ethical, legal and societal issues. Been guaranteed as basic right to all human beings ICT should be used as an instrument for the gathering of information and knowledge to the human (Smith, 2002). Even by enacting the rights violation such as the digital divide, cybercrime, digital security has increased thus affecting people’s lives either directly or indirectly (Walters, 2001). Information technology is impacting all walks of life all over the world. IT developments have made it possible to transit information storage, processing, and disintegration, from paper to virtual as well as from atoms to bits. These are the new settings of new standards of speed, efficiency, and accuracy in human activities. There is extensive usage of computerized databases which are used to store all sorts of private data of political, social, economic and of personal nature so as to support development when bringing the numerous benefits to the society (Cappel, 1995). However, the rapid development of IT globally also has led to the growth of new forms of national and transnational crimes. These crimes in virtual existence and have no boundaries. They are bound to affect any country across the world. Thus, there is a need for awareness, policy formation, and enactment of necessary legislation in all countries for the sensitization of the ethical issues related to the adoption of IT (Pearson, Crosby, & Shim, 1997). References Laudon, K. 1995. “Ethical Concepts and Information Technology,” Communications of the ACM, December 1995 p 33-40. Pearson, J.M., Crosby, L. and Shim, J.P. (1997) Measuring the Importance of Ethical Criteria Behavior, Communications of the ACM, 40, 9, 94-100. Smith, H.J. (2002) Ethics and Information Systems: Resolving the Quandaries, The Database for Advances in Information Systems, 33, 3, 8-20. Walters, G.J. (2001) Privacy and Security: An Ethical Analysis, Computers and Society, 31, 2, 8- 23. Cappel, J.J. (1995) A Study of Individuals’ Ethical Beliefs and Perceptions of Electronic Mail Privacy, Journal of Business Ethics, 14, 10, 819-827. Johnson D (2001). Computer Ethics 3rd ed. Prentice Hall. Kallman E and Grillo J (1996). Ethical Decision making and Information Technology: An Introduction and Cases 2nd ed.  McGraw-Hill. Tavani, H.T. (2001) The State of Computer Ethics as a Philosophical Field of Inquiry: Some Contemporary Perspectives, Future Projections, and Current Resources, Ethics and Information Technology, 3, 2, 97-108. Read More