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CHAPTER 4
(UPDATED NOV. 26, 2013)
Social, Ethical, & Legal Issues in ISs
Ethics
Principles of right & wrong that individuals, acting as free moral agents, use to make choices to guide their behaviours*
Not the same as legal, but frequently, actions that are unethical are also illegal – and not everything that is illegal is unethical* Digital Law – new, expanding**
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A Metaphor for Thinking about Ethical, Social, & Political Issues
• Society as a calm pond• IT as a rock dropped in pond, creating
ripples of new situations not covered by old rules
• Social & political institutions cannot respond overnight to these ripples — it may take years to develop etiquette, expectations, laws
• Requires understanding of ethics to make choices in legally grey areas
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Five Moral Dimensionsof the Information Age
• Information rights & obligations
• Property rights & obligations
• Accountability & control
• System quality
• Quality of life
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The Relationship among Ethical, Social, & Political Issues in an Information Society
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Technology Trendsthat Raise Ethical Issues
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Nonobvious Relationship Awareness
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Basic Concepts:Responsibility, Accountability, Liability
Responsibility: Accepting the potential costs, duties, & obligations for decisions
Accountability: Methodology for identifying responsible parties
Liability: Permits individuals to recover damages done to them
Due process: Laws are well known & understood, with an ability to appeal to higher authorities
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Ethical Analysis
1. Identify & clearly describe the facts2. Define the conflict or dilemma, &
identify the higher-order values involved
3. Identify the stakeholders4. Identify the options that you can
reasonably take5. Identify the consequences of your
options
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Candidate Ethical Principles
1. Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule
2. Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative: If an action is not right for everyone to take, then it is not right for anyone
3. Descartes’ rule of change: If an action cannot be taken repeatedly, then it is not right to be taken at any time
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Candidate Ethical Principles #2
4. Utilitarian Principle: Take the action that achieves the greatest value for all concerned
5. Risk Aversion Principle: Take the action that produces the least harm or incurs the least cost to all concerned
6. Ethical “no free lunch” rule: Assume that all tangible & intangible objects are owned by someone else, unless there is a specific declaration otherwise
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Privacy in the Internet Age
Privacy: Claim of individuals to be left alone, free from surveillance or interference from other individuals, organizations, or the state. Ethical (cultural) norms with legal backing.
Personal Information Protection & Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) establishes principles for collection, use, & disclosure of personal data*
Provinces have parallel legislation
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Internet Challenges to Privacy
Internet facilitates tracking of online activities (e.g., cookies are used to trace Web site visits)*
Web bugs & spyware can install automatically
Opt-in versus opt-out models of informed consent(e.g., filling in online profiles in order to get access to some documents or software)
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Cookies
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Figure 4-3
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Privacy Policies
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Figure 4-4
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How Google Uses the Data It Collects
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Technical Solutions
Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) Enables automatic
communication of privacy policies between an e-commerce site & its visitors
Privacy policy can become part of the page’s software
MIS 2000Figure 4-4
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Intellectual Property Rights
• Intellectual property is intangible property created by individuals or corporations
• Protected by:• Trade secrets• Copyright• Patents
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Trade Secrets
Intellectual work or product belonging to a business and not found in the public domain
Supreme Court test for breach of trade secrets:1. Communications must be labelled
“confidential”2. Communicated content must have been
misused by the receiver3. Effects must have been harmful to the
complainant
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Copyright
Statutory grant protecting intellectual property from being copied for at least 50 years
Canadian copyright law protects original literary, musical, artistic, & dramatic works. It also includes software & prohibits copying of entire programs or their parts.
NOTE: This week, the US Congress began entertaining a bill to reduce copyright to 50 years from 70.
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Patent
A grant to the creator of an invention giving the owner an exclusive monopoly on the ideas behind an invention for between 17 & 20 years
Patent law grants a monopoly on underlying concepts & ideas of software
Originality, novelty, & invention are key concepts
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Challenges to Intellectual Property Rights
MIS 2000
Perfect digital copies cost almost nothingSharing of digital content over the Internet
costs almost nothingSites, software, & services for file trading
are not easily regulatedA Web page may present data from many
sources & may incorporate framing
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Accountability, Liability, & Control
MIS 2000
• Computer-related liability problems• System quality
• Data quality & system errors• No software is perfect, errors will be made,
even if the errors have a low probability of occurring
• Software developers knowingly ship “buggy” products
• At what point should software be shipped?
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Accountability, Liability, & Control
MIS 2000
Quality of life: Equity, access, & boundaries (continued)• Computer crime & abuse (stealing data vs. using work
computer for private purposes)• Employment: Trickle-down technology & reengineering
job loss impact • Equity & access: Increasing racial & social class divisions
• AKA The Digital Divide• Health risks: RSI, CVS, & technostress
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Mason’s PAPA Model
MIS 2000
Property: Whose property is it anyway? Do NOT pirate anything!
Accuracy: How accurate does it need to be? Think of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Privacy: Do you want everything about you to be public knowledge? How can you protect your privacy? (The Globe & Mail test, the Mama test)
Access: Who should have access? Equity of access within a business. Do not omit staff from access if they need access.
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Brabston’s Extension toMason’s PAPA Equity
Layoffs: These are people’s lives, not statistics!
Access to IT: For an equitable society & one that trains everyone in certain fundamental skills, everyone must have access to appropriate hardware, software, & networks
Access to computer literacy: Everyone must understand how to use a computer & the Internet
Access to informing literacy: Everyone should understand what information is valid, reliable, consistent, accurate, appropriate, etc. --?
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