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CHAPTER 6

Chapter 6 Ethical and Social Impact of Information Systems

6.1

Technology can be a double-edged sword.

Digital information can be analyzed, transmitted and shared among many people.
But this powerful capability creates new opportunities for breaking the law or taking
benefits away from others.
Understanding Ethical and Social Issues Related to Systems
Ethics is referring to the principle of right and wrong that individuals, acting as free
moral agents, use to make choices to guide their behavior.
IT / IS raise new ethical questions for both individuals and societies because they
create opportunities for intense social change and thus threaten existing distributions
of power, money, rights and obligations.
This is similar to telephone, electricity, radio, etc where these can be used to achieve
social progress, but it can also be used to commit crimes and threaten cherished social
values.
When using IS, it is essential to ask, what is the ethical and socially responsible
course of actions?

Model of Ethical, Social and Political Issues

2
Political Issues
Social Issues
Ethical Issues
IT / IS

Figure 6.1
3

Individual
Society

The relationship
of ethical, social
and political
issues.

Polity
4
1. Accountability and Control
2. Information Rights and
Obligations

5
3. Property Rights and
obligations
4. Systems Quality
5. Quality of Life
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Ethical, social and political issues are closely linked.

Social institutions (family, education, organizations) have developed well-honed rules
of behavior, and these are backed by in the political sector that prescribes behavior
and promise authorize for violations.
The model is useful for identifying the main moral dimensions of the information
society, which cut across various levels of action individual, social, political.

Keys Technology Trends That Ethical Issues

Ethical issues long preceded information technology.

Information technology has strengthened ethical concerns, and put stress on existing
social arrangements, and made existing laws obsolete.
There are four technological trends responsible for these ethical stresses:

a) Computing power doubles every 18 months

It has made possible for most organizations to use IS for their core production
processes.
Thus, system dependencies, vulnerability to system errors and poor data quality have
increased.
b) Advances in data storage techniques and rapidly declining storage costs
These advances in data storage have made the routine violation of individual privacy
both cheap and effective.
Huge and enormous data storage systems are cheap enough for retailing firms to use
in identifying customers.
c) Data analysis advances
It enables companies to find out much detailed personal information.
With contemporary and up-to-date IT, companies can assemble and combine
numerous pieces of customer information easily.
d) Networking advances and the Internet
Copying data from one location to another and accessing personal data from remote
locations are much easier.

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6.2

CHAPTER 6

Ethics In An Information Society

Responsibility, Accountability and Liability

Ethical choices are decisions made by individuals who are responsible for the
consequences of their actions.
Responsibility accepting the potential costs, duties and obligations for the decisions
one makes.
Accountability the mechanisms for accessing responsibility for the decisions made
and actions taken.
Liability the existence of laws that permit individuals to recover the damages done
to them by other systems or organizations.
Information technologies are filtered through social institutions, organizations and
individuals.
Whatever information system impacts exist are products of institutional,
organizational and individual actions and behaviors.
Responsibility for the consequences of technology falls clearly on the institutions,
organizations and individual managers who choose to use the technology.
How to conduct an ethical analysis
Identify and describe clearly the facts
Define the conflict and dilemma and identify the higher-order values involved
Identify the stakeholders
Identify the reasonable options
Identify the potential consequences of the options
6.3

The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems

The major ethical, social and political issues raised by information systems include the
following moral dimensions:
a) Information rights and obligations
It is refer to the rights that individuals and organizations have with respect to
information that pertains to them.
What information rights do individuals and organizations posses with respect to
information about themselves?
What can they protect?
What obligations do individuals and organizations have concerning this
information?

Privacy the claim of individuals to be left alone, free from surveillance or

interference from other individuals, organizations or the government.

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Eg. Freedom of Information Act, 1966 as Amended (5 USC 552), Privacy Act of
1974 as Amended (5 USC 552a), Privacy Protection Act of 1978, etc.

Internet Challenges to Privacy

Information sent over vast networks may pass through many different computer
systems before it reaches its final destination.
Each of these systems is capable of monitoring, capturing and storing
communications that pass through it.
It is possible to record many online activities, including which Web sites or Web
pages a user has visited, what items that person has inspected or purchased over the
Web.
Tools and devices to monitor visits to the World Wide Web (WWW) have become
popular because they help organizations determine who is visiting their Web sites.
Web sites also using cookie technology, a tiny file deposited on a computer hard
drive to identify visitors Web browser software and track visits to the Web site.
When the visitor returns to a site that has deposited a cookie, the Web site software
will search the visitors computer, find the cookie and know what the person has
done in the past.
For example, if you purchase a book on the Amazon.com Web site and return later
from the same browser, the site will welcome you by name and recommend other
books of interest based on what you past purchases.
Technical Solutions
For legislation, some technologies are being developed to protect user privacy during
interactions with Web sites.
Some tools are used for encrypting e-mail, making e-mail or Web surfing activities
appear anonymous or preventing user computers from accepting cookies.
Privacy Protection
Function
Managing Cookies
Clocking Ads
Encrypting e-mail or
data
Anonymous

Description
Block or limit cookies from being
placed on the users computer
Control ads that pop up based on user
profiles and prevent ads from collecting
or sending information
Scramble e-mail or data so that it will
not be readable
Allow users to surf the Web without
being identified or to send anonymous
e-mail
Table 6.1

Privacy protection tools

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Example
Microsoft Internet
Explorer 5 and 6
CookieCrunsher
BHO Cop
AdSubtract
Pretty Good
Privacy (PGP)
Anonymizer.com

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Ethical Issues
Under what circumstances should I (you) assault the privacy of others?
Do we have to inform people what we are eavesdropping (listen in)?
Social Issues
In what areas of life should we as a society encourage people to think they are in
private territory as opposed to public view?
Should we as a society encourage people to develop expectations of privacy when
using e-mail?
Political Issue
Should we allow FBI or any investigators to monitor e-mail when they suspected
criminals?
b) Property Rights: Intellectual property
Intellectual property intangible property created by individuals or corporations that
is subject to protections under trade secret, copyright and patent law.
Trade secret it refers to any intellectual work product a formula
(procedures/processes), device, pattern or compilation of data used for a business
purpose.
Copyright a statutory grant that protects creators of intellectual property against
copying by others for any purpose for a minimum of 70 years.
Patent A legal document that grant the owner an exclusive monopoly on the ideas
behind an invention for 20 years.
Ethical Issues
It is concerns the protection of intellectual property such as software, digital
books, digital music and etc.
Should I (you) copy for my own use a piece of software or other digital content
material protected by trade secret, copyright, and/or patent law?
Social Issues
The ease with which software and digital content can be copied contributes to
making us a society of lawbreakers.
These routine thefts threaten significantly to reduce the speed with which new
information technologies can and will be introduced and therefore, threaten
further advances in productivity and social well-being.

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Political Issues
This mainly concerns the creation of new property protection measures to protect
investments made by creators of new software, digital books and digital
entertainment.
Eg, Microsoft and 1,400 other software and information content firms are
represented by the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), which
lobbies for new laws and enforcement of existing laws to protect intellectual
property around the world.
c) Accountability and control
Along with privacy and property laws, new information technologies are challenging
existing liability law and social practices for holding individuals and institutions
accountable.
Who can and will be held accountable and liable for the harm done due to individual
and collective information and property rights?
Ethical Issues
The central liability-related ethical issue raised by new information technologies
is whether individuals and organizations that create, produce and sell systems
(both hardware and software) are morally responsible for the consequences of
their use.
If so, under what conditions? What liabilities should the user assume?
Social Issues
Should individuals and organizations be encouraged to develop their own backup
devices to cover likely or easily anticipated system failures?
Can society allow networks and bulletin boards to post inaccurate and misleading
information that will harm many persons?
Political Issues
The debate between information providers, who want to be relieved of liability as
much as possible; and service users, who want organizations to be held
responsible for providing high-quality system services.
Should legislation impose liability or restrict liability on service providers?
d) System Quality: Data Quality and System Errors
What standards of data and system quality should be demand to protect individual
rights and the safety of society?
At what point should system managers say, Stop testing, weve done all we can to
protect this software!
Individuals and organizations may be held responsible for avoidable and foreseeable
consequences, which they have a duty to perceive and correct.
Ethical Issues
Should I (or you) release software or services for consumption by others?
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At what point can you conclude that your software or service achieves an
economically and technologically adequate level of quality?
Social Issue
As a society, do we want to encourage people to believe that systems are perfect
that data errors are impossible?
Political Issues
Should National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) to develop quality
standards of software, hardware and data?
Should our government or Congress punish poor system quality?
e) Quality of Life
The negative social costs of introducing information technologies and systems are
beginning to mount along with the power of technology.
These negative consequences can be extremely harmful to individuals, societies and
political institutions.
Thus, balancing power, rapidity of change (reduced response time to competition)
and maintaining boundaries (family, work and leisure) are important to quality of life.

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