Information ethics has been defined as "the branch of ethics that focuses on the relationship between the creation, organization, dissemination, and use of information, and the ethical standards and moral codes governing human conduct in society".[1] The term information ethics was first coined by Robert Hauptman and used in the book Ethical challenges in librarianship. It examines the morality that comes from information as a resource, a product, or as a target.[2] It provides a critical framework for considering moral issues concerning informational privacy, moral agency (e.g. whether artificial agents may be moral), new environmental issues (especially how agents should behave in the infosphere), problems arising from the life-cycle (creation, collection, recording, distribution, processing, etc.) of information (especially ownership and copyright, digital divide, and digital rights). It is very vital to understand that librarians, archivists, information professionals among others, really understand the importance of knowing how to disseminate proper information as well as being responsible with their actions when addressing information.[3] Information ethics has evolved to relate to a range of fields such as computer ethics,[4] medical ethics, journalism[5] and the philosophy of information. Dilemmas regarding the life of information are becoming increasingly important in a society that is defined as "the information society". The explosion of so much technology has brought information ethics to a forefront in ethical considerations. Information transmission and literacy are essential concerns in establishing an ethical foundation that promotes fair, equitable, and responsible practices. Information ethics broadly examines issues related to ownership, access, privacy, security, and community. It is also concerned with relational issues such as "the relationship between information and the good of society, the relationship between information providers and the consumers of information".[6] Information technology affects common issues such as copyright protection, intellectual freedom, accountability, privacy, and security. Many of these issues are difficult or impossible to resolve due to fundamental tensions between Western moral philosophies (based on rules, democracy, individual rights, and personal freedoms) and the traditional Eastern cultures (based on relationships, hierarchy, collective responsibilities, and social harmony).[7] The multi-faceted dispute between Google and the government of the People's Republic of China reflects some of these fundamental tensions.

1. MANAGEMENT INFORMATION
SYSTEM
Ethical & Social
Issues in MIS

2. Information systems and ethics
– Information systems raise new ethical
questions because they create
opportunities for:
Intense social change, threatening
existing distributions of power, money,
rights, and obligations
New kinds of crime

3. Key technology trends that raise
ethical issues
1. Doubling of computer power
– More organizations depend on computer systems for
critical operations
1. Rapidly declining data storage costs
– Organizations can easily maintain detailed databases on
individuals
1. Networking advances and the Internet
– Copying data from one location to another and accessing
personal data from remote locations is much easier

4. 4. Advances in data analysis techniques
– Companies can analyze vast quantities of data
gathered on individuals for:
 Profiling
– Combining data from multiple sources to create
dossiers of detailed information on individuals
 Nonobvious relationship awareness (NORA)
– Combining data from multiple sources to find obscure
hidden connections that might help identify criminals or
terrorists

5. NORA technology can take information about people from disparate sources
and find obscure, nonobvious relationships. It might discover, for example, that
an applicant for a job shares a telephone number with a known criminal and
issue an alert to the hiring manager.

6. Where does it cross the line?
 Edward Snowden
 He leaked classified documents
that revealed numerous global
surveillance programs, many run
by the NSA and the Five
Eyes* with the cooperation
of telecommunication
companies and European
governments
* It is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New
Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States

7. Ethics in an Information Society
 Basic concepts for ethical analysis
– Responsibility:
 Accepting the potential costs, duties, and obligations for
decisions
– Accountability:
 Mechanisms for identifying responsible parties
– Liability:
 Permits individuals (and firms) to recover damages done to
them
– Due process:
 Laws are well known and understood, with an ability to appeal
to higher authorities

8.  Ethical analysis: A five-step process
1. Identify and clearly describe the facts
2. Define the conflict or dilemma and identify the
higher-order values involved
3. Identify the stakeholders
4. Identify the options that you can reasonably
take
5. Identify the potential consequences of your
options

9.  Six Candidate Ethical Principles
1. Golden Rule
 Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
1. Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative
 If an action is not right for everyone to take, it is not right
for anyone
1. Descartes’ Rule of Change
 If an action cannot be taken repeatedly, it is not right to
take at all

10.  Six Candidate Ethical Principles (cont.)
4. Utilitarian Principle
 Take the action that achieves the higher or greater value
4. Risk Aversion Principle
 Take the action that produces the least harm or least
potential cost
4. Ethical “no free lunch” Rule
 Assume that virtually all tangible and intangible objects are
owned by someone unless there is a specific declaration
otherwise

11. Five moral dimensions of the
information age
1. Information rights and obligations
2. Property rights and obligations
3. Accountability and control
4. System quality
5. Quality of life

12. Five moral dimensions graphically

13. 1- Information rights and
obligations
 Privacy:
– Claim of individuals to be left alone, free from
surveillance or interference from other individuals,
organizations, or state. Claim to be able to control
information about yourself
 Do you believe that there are sufficient
protections for privacy in law?

14. Data protection laws of the world
 http://www.dlapiperdataprotection.com/

15. Fair Information Practices (FIP)
 Notice/awareness (core principle)
– Web sites must disclose practices before collecting
data
 Choice/consent (core principle)
– Consumers must be able to choose how information
is
 Access/participation
– Consumers must be able to review, contest
accuracy of personal data

16. Fair Information Practices (FIP)
 Security
– Data collectors must take steps to ensure accuracy,
security of personal data
 Enforcement
– There must be a mechanism to enforce FIP
principles

17. Internet challenges to privacy
 Cookies
– Tiny files downloaded by Web site to visitor’s hard drive
to help identify visitor’s browser and track visits to site
– Allow Web sites to develop profiles on visitors
 Web beacons/bugs
– Tiny graphics embedded in e-mail and Web pages to
monitor who is reading message
 Spyware
– Surreptitiously installed on user’s computer
– May transmit user’s keystrokes or display unwanted ads

18. Google’s collection of private data;
behavioral targeting
 What are your thoughts on it?

19. 2 - Property rights and obligations
 Intellectual property: Intangible property of any
kind created by individuals or corporations
 Three main ways that protect intellectual property
1. Trade secret: Intellectual work or product belonging to
business, not in the public domain
2. Copyright: Statutory grant protecting intellectual
property from being copied for the life of the author,
plus 70 years
3. Patents: Grants creator of invention an exclusive
monopoly on ideas behind invention for 20 years

20.  Challenges to intellectual property rights
– Digital media different from physical media (e.g.
books)
 Ease of replication
 Ease of transmission (networks, Internet)
 Difficulty in classifying software
 Compactness
 Difficulties in establishing uniqueness

21. 3 - Accountability and control
Computer-related liability problems
– If software fails, who is responsible?
– Eg, Amazon and its clients

22. 4 - Systems quality
 System Quality: Data Quality and System Errors
– What is an acceptable, technologically feasible level of
system quality?
 Flawless software is economically unfeasible
– Three principal sources of poor system performance:
 Software bugs, errors
 Hardware or facility failures
 Poor input data quality (most common source of business
system failure)

23. 5 - Quality of life
 Quality of life: Equity, access, and boundaries
– Negative social consequences of systems
 Balancing power: Although computing power helps
decentralizing, key decision-making remains centralized
 Rapidity of change: Businesses may not have enough time
to respond to global competition
 Maintaining boundaries: Computing, Internet use lengthens
work-day, infringes on family, personal time
 Dependence and vulnerability: Public and private
organizations ever more dependent on computer systems

24. Health risks:
– Repetitive stress injury (RSI)
Largest source is computer keyboards
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS)
– Computer vision syndrome (CVS)
– Technostress
– Role of radiation, screen emissions, low-
level electromagnetic fields

25.  Computer crime and abuse
– Computer crime: Commission of illegal acts through use
of compute or against a computer system – computer
may be object or instrument of crime
– Computer abuse: Unethical acts, not illegal
 Spam: High costs for businesses in dealing with spam
 Employment:
– Reengineering work resulting in lost jobs
 Equity and access – the digital divide:
– Certain ethnic and income groups in the United States
less likely to have computers or Internet access

26. Questions??