HP and Pre-Texting - Essay Example

Pre-texting Patricia Dunn should not have been fired, because while it is clear that she did hire the private investigator to find out information, it cannot be clearly established that she authorized them to acquire this information by resorting to pre-texting. The responsibility for pre-texting can be placed upon Patricia Dunn only if she specifically authorized the pre-texting. This can only be determined through the legal route, if Patricia Dunn is able to prove that while she authorized the investigation, she had no specific knowledge that the means used would be pre-texting, or that pre-texting had actually occurred, then she will not be liable. The issue if further complicated by the fact that Hewlett Packard does not have any clear policy on the ethical issues involved in pre-texting and has not established by clear company guidelines on the issue, hence Patricia Dunn could not have been expected to be aware of them. Pre-texting involves the collection of personal and confidential information under false pretences (www.ftc.gov). In this case, the tactics employed by the private investigator are equivalent to pre-texting, because they have posed as directors of Hewlett Packard and as journalists, in order to access the phone records of the directors during the course of the investigation. This required them to obtain personal information about the Directors and journalists, such as their social security and personal phone numbers, in order to be able to pose as them. Therefore, in effect, there has also been an identity theft. Pre-texting is against the law, because the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act makes it illegal for anyone to use false or fraudulent statements to obtain customer information. (www.ftc.gov). Identity theft also will fall under the category of similar offences because according to the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act, it becomes a federal crime when a person “knowingly transfers or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person with the intent to commit, or to aid and bet, any unlawful activity that constitutes a violation of federal law, or that constitutes a felony under any applicable state or local law.”(www.ftc.gov). Hence it would appear that the act of the private investigator Ronald DeLia, in identify theft of the HP Directors and Journalists through the use of their personal information, would constitute an illegal act. A poll conducted by Deloitte and Touche showed that most companies have not specified policies on dealing with the issue of pretexting (Qualters, 2007). There is an ethical issue involved in investigations that are conducted by using deceptive means to collect information, quite apart from the legal implications that arise from the theft of identity or accessing personal information. Where the question of acquisition of phone records through deceptive means is concerned, the question that arises is where to draw the line between the ethical need to investigate and the unethical means used to obtain such information. While it may be argued that obtaining information from a source directly during the investigation process may be ethical, the use of a third person, in this case the cell phone company, to obtain information about that person without his or her knowledge could amount to unethical conduct that would not be acceptable, because it would constitute an unwarranted intrusion into the privacy of an individual. In the HP case also, there are ethical questions raised about the actions of the investigators in resorting to deception and pre-texting by acquiring the phone numbers and social security numbers of the directors to gather information on them, and to access their personal phone records. The acts of the investigation firm were unethical and if Patricia Dunn had the knowledge of what was going on, then she would be liable and forcing her to resign would appear to be justified, but this would not be the case if she had no knowledge of the acts. As Eric Brod of Deloitte Services questions, does anyone from the company tell the investigators what they are and are not permitted to do on the basis of the ethical guidelines of the Company? (Qualters, 2007. This is the major issue that arises where Patricia Dunn is concerned and the extent of her liability must be determined according to whether she had an obligation to impress upon the investigators what actions would not be permissible according to the ethical standards of the company. In arriving at a determination on whether or not Patricia Dunn will be liable, it will first be necessary to ascertain whether she authorized pretexting. While it is quite clear that it was Patricia Dunn who hired the investigator firm and authorized the investigation into who was leaking company information to outsiders, and it is also quite likely that she would have allowed the company to investigate all the individuals in the company including Directors, it is not clear whether she specifically authorized the pretexting. If resorting to pretexting and deception was a measure that the investigation firm undertook on its own, then Patricia Dunn cannot be held liable for these acts. In the absence of any clear company policy on this issue, which spells out the ethical obligations and boundaries for conduct within the firm, Dunn cannot be expected to be responsible for spelling out these ethical boundaries to the investigators. On this basis therefore, it may be argued that forcing Patricia Dunn to resign would have been justified only when it could be proved that she had committed an unethical or illegal act. Her action in hiring an investigation firm is not unethical or illegal per se, since she was doing it ultimately for the benefit of her company. She cannot be held responsible for not spelling out ethical boundaries to the firm either, since there is no clear company policy in existence on the issue. Unless and until it can be clearly proved that she was aware of the pretexting going on but chose to allow it to proceed or deliberately encouraged it, she cannot be held to be liable. The law holds a person to be innocent until proven guilty; therefore Patricia Dunn has to be held innocent until her guilt is proved through her knowledge of the pretexting. While it is understandable that the company has forced her to resign as a means to protect its public corporate image, it may not be completely justified in this case. It would have been better for the Company to just pursue its legal action against the investigation firm rather than directing punitive action against Patricia Dunn before her guilt is proved. Her actions in hiring an investigation firm were only to benefit the Company and if she had no knowledge of the pretexting, then forcing her to resign seems to be an unjustified move. Moreover, since the Company does not have any definite company policies in place on ethical issues involved in pretexting, or in fact, any official policy on pretexting, forcing Dunn to resign over this issue seems even more unjustified. In effect, it is like making Dunn a scapegoat for the Company’s own failure to introduce policies on pretexting, especially when they are aware that it is illegal. What is in effect the fault of the investigation company is being blamed on Patricia Dunn. On this basis therefore, it may be argued that Patricia Dunn should not have been forced to resign rather she should have been provided the opportunity to prove her innocence first and an investigation should have been undertaken by the Company Board of Directors to determine her guilt before forcing her to resign.. References: * Facts for Consumers. Retrieved January 28, 2008 from: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/pretext.shtm * Qualters, Sheri, 2007. “Corporate guidelines on pre-texting slow to develop”, The National Law Journal, Retrieved January 28, 2008 from: http://www.law.com/jsp/ihc/PubArticleIHC.jsp?id=1170756166642 Read More