Ethics Report and Sustainability Report - Assignment Example

? ETHICS REPORT AND SUSTAINABILITY REPORT by Ethics Report Introduction Radiofrequency identification (RFID) replaces the barcode system as it uses a new system of numbering known as electronic product code. Electronic number code uniquely identifies all objects in the world by assigning unique identification to them. Many organizations have implemented the RFID technology for security reasons. With the system in place, the organizations are able to collect volumes of information regarding people who pass through them including people’s movements and use them to do other things that people are not aware of. In addition, there are no clear and explicit policies regarding RFID usage. This raises ethical concerns about people’s privacy. In this regard, by implementing the RFID system, the following ethical concerns should be considered by the company. Stakeholders The four main stakeholders in the case are the operations manager, employees of the organization, customers or clients, IS policy makers. The operations manager will be affected in case ethical issues arise as he is in charge of the implementation of the RFID system. He will have to make the decision, based on the analysis, whether the system should be implemented or not. Employees will be affected as their movement will be restricted because they will be monitored by the system. Clients or customers will be affected as their information will be collected without their knowledge. Lastly, IS policy makers will have to develop policies that strike a balance between ethical dilemma. Analysis Based on PAPA Framework The four principles of Mansion, Property, Access, Privacy, and Accuracy overlap with the use of RIFD. Property involves the owner of information and how it should be distributed or sold to other entities. Unlike traditional times where information in hard forms and their hard nature made them easy to own, the advancement in technology has made information to be in soft form, which has brought a lot of challenges regarding ownership. Organizations use the RFID and collect a lot of information of employees without their knowledge and use the information for their own benefits. In this regard, some organizations sell the information they gather from employees or even customers to third party organizations (Balkovich, Bikson & Bitko 2005). For example, it is likely that many retail traders sell customers personal information regarding their behavior of buying. This will make third party organizations to practice targeted and direct marketing. The information gathered by RFID will enable the organizations to know the frequency of shopping of a customer, the store he or she shops, the products she likes, and many other attributes that encourage direct and targeted marketing (Huber, Houck & Vinogradov n.d.). Collecting and using customers’ personal information is unethical. The information is considered her property and she should be informed when it is collected and how it is used. According to Mason framework (1986), Access involves the kind of information that can be collected from a person and how it can be used and accessed. Organizations use RFID to collect personal information from clients. While employees can be told the kind of information collected by RIFD systems, they are not always allowed to access, inspect, and correct such information. This is unethical as it is the right of employees and clients to access their personal information collected by RFID, inspect, and correct them. However, it is normally not practical to allow employees or clients to access systems and correct such information even if the information collected about them is wrong. Privacy involves protection from private intrusion. Employees and clients have the right to privacy where they can do their things at will in a manner they like without interference from third party. Organizations use RFID tags to monitor and observe the movement of employees in the building or work place in order to use the data collected to develop rules and regulations that guide their behavior. Some organizations may use the tags to monitor the movement of their customers in order to know the purchasing habits of customers either in the store or in another store. This is unethical. Observing someone’s’ movements, even when going to the toilets is not ethical at all. Human beings have the right to move and interact with others even in work place without intrusion. According to Mason framework (1986), privacy involves authenticity of information collected. It is also concerned with the parties responsible for errors that can occur in the process of collecting such information. The RFID system collects personal information regarding employees or clients and separate and secure from others. While the clients or employees may not have access to the information, securing it from third parties is ethically right. Cause of Action The advancement in technology has made organizations to adopt and use them in their day to day operations. In return, they have managed to serve clients effectively and efficiently. In this regard, organizations strive to identify emerging technologies and use them to improve the quality of services they offer to clients. With the emerging current increased rate of crimes, security of business premises is very important. In addition, in the current competitive world, it is prudent to pay employees for the work they do, otherwise, the output of an organization may not be proportional to the number of employees. The company should implement the RFID system as it will assist in monitoring the whereabouts of employees provide security to building. Utilitarian theory of ethics supports this. According to the theory, an act is considered to be ethically right if it brings the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people. Regardless of the ethical concerns, the RFID will significantly impact the lives of employees at one time. Sustainability Report Introduction For many years, RFID technology has been used in security relates applications and has become part of everyday life. due to the advancement in technology and the need to implement green technology, many organizations have seen the need to use RFID to limit the amount of waste emitted to the atmosphere therefore reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted in the atmosphere. The fact that server rooms use a lot of power to power the computers and to cool them, there is need to develop technologies that encourage green computing. Wasting a lot of electric power eventually leads to release of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which encourage global warming. JJ is in the right direction of implementing RFID as one of his green technology for sustainable world. How to Achieve Sustainability Using RFID Greenhouse gases encourage global warming with a large percentage. Implementing technologies that reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted to the atmosphere will greatly contribute to achieving sustainability. JJ can implement RFID technology in its main entrance where workers pass using vehicles. In this regard, a passive RFID badge can be placed on the taxi and another on the gate. This will ensure that only authorized vehicles enter the parking lot and their engines are turned off. This will reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in the atmosphere as the system will eliminate taxis without the RFID badge. The badges in the vehicles can be used by the organization to track the miles their vehicles travel in a day. This will reduce unnecessary journeys the organization’s vehicles make thus reducing amount of carbon dioxide emitted in the atmosphere. The organization can also use the RFID technology to improve supply chain efficiency. By tracking inventory effectively, the organization will achieve sustainability by reducing the number of trucks coming to collect or deliver products and materials and reducing the number of trips the tracks make during delivery and collection of products and materials. RFID implementation in the organization will control the number of people accessing the building therefore reducing the number of people using equipment that consume a lot of energy, encouraging sustainability. Flow Chart Indicating the Operation of the System Figure 1 below shows the flow chart of how an RFID system will operate. Figure 1: Flow chart showing RFID operation The system will have a sensor which will sense all employees and vehicles based on the RFID given to them or placed on vehicles. After the gadgets of the vehicles are detected, the detector sends signals to the signal conditioning circuit, which is a transducer, which changes the signals to a form that the processor can understand. Depending on the make of the RFID, the signals are normally converted from analogue to digital to be processed by the processor. The processor processes the information according to predetermined instructions and outputs it to another signal conditioning circuit which again changes the signals to a form suitable for the output device. The output produced is then stored for future use. The collected information will enable the organization to know and monitor the movement of employees and attain sustainability by getting information regarding movement of vehicles. The system will also monitor inventory and the movement of trucks to ensure that the trucks only come to pick products or deliver raw materials when necessary (Orecchini et al. 2010). This will reduce environmental pollution and consumption of fuel. RFID is indeed a technology that can be used in many applications. While it was historically developed to enhance security in various places, it is nowadays used in diverse applications including monitoring the movement of employees, collecting personal information of employees, and achieving sustainability. Though there might ethical issues regarding some of its usage, its benefits outweigh the concerns. The benefits include the most reduction of greenhouse gases which is a major problem all over the world! Utilitarian theory of ethics considers an act is to be ethically right if it brings the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people. RFID will significantly impact the lives of employees at one time and JJ should implement it to reap the benefits and encourage a sustainable world. Reference List Balkovich, E., Bikson, T. K. & Bitko, G 2005, Privacy in the Workplace: Case Studies on The Use of Radio Frequency Identification in Access Cards, viewed 25th April 2013, . Huber, K., Houck, L. & Vinogradov, I n.d., RFID With The Retail Environment, viewed 25th April 2013, . Orecchni, G., Yang, L., Rida, A., Alimenti, F., Tentzeris, M. M. & Roselli, L 2010, Green Technologies and RFID: Present and Future. Read More