ETHICAL AND SOCIAL

ISSUES IN INFORMATION
SYSTEM

Ethical issues facing the use of technologies for

the aged community
The Australian government takes a strong interest
in the use of IT for the direct and indirect care of the
aged community. Indirect care includes the
administrative aspects of aged care in nursing and
aged care communities. IT has the potential to
improve the quality of lifestyle for the aged. For
example, access to the internet makes the aged feel
more in touch with the rest of the world and, in many
cases, assist the day-to-day living such as online
grocery purchases, online bill payment and checking
bank statements.

Understanding ethical and social issues

related to systems
Ethics - are the principles of right and wrong individuals,
acting as free moral agents, use to make choices to guide
their behavior.
Ethical, social, and political issues are closely linked.
Introduction of new technology has a ripple effect in the
current equilibrium, creating new ethical, social, and political
issues that must be dealt with on individual, social, and
political levels. Both social and political institutions require
time before developing new behaviors, rules, and laws.

Relationship between ethical, social, and

political issues in an information society

Five moral dimensions of the

information age
1. Information Rights and Obligations: What information rights
do individuals and organizations possess with respect to information
about themselves? What can they protect? What obligations do
individuals and organizations have concerning this information?
2. Property Rights and obligations. How will traditional
intellectual property rights be protected in a digital society in which
tracing and accounting for ownership is difficult, and ignoring such
property rights is so easy?
3. Accountability and Control: Who can and will be held
accountable and liable for the harm done to individual and collective
information and property rights?

System quality. What standards of data and system quality

should we demand to protect individual rights and the
safety of society?
Quality of life. What values should be preserved in an
information and knowledge-based society? Which
institutions should we protect from violation? Which
cultural values and practices are supported by the new
information technology.

Key technology trends that raise ethical

issues
4 key technology trends have heightened the ethical stresses on
existing social arrangements and laws.
1. Computing power has doubled every 18 months.
Allowing growing numbers of organizations to use
information systems in their core business processes.
2. Advances in data storage technique have enabled for the
multiplying databases on individuals maintained by private
and public organization making the violation of individual
privacy both cheap and effective.
3. Advances in data analysis enabled companies and
government agencies use profiling to determine detailed
information about individuals habits and tastes and create
dossiers of detailed information

Nonobvious relationship Awareness (NORA)

- Is a new data analysis technology that can take data

about people from sources and correlate relationships

to find hidden connection to identify potential
criminals and terrorists.
4. Advances in networking reduce the costs of
moving accessing data permitting privacy invasions
on a vast scale.

Nonobvious relationship Awareness

Ethics in an information society

Ethics is a concern of humans who have freedom of
choice.

Basic concepts: Responsibility,

Accountability, and Liability
Ethical choices are decisions made by individuals who are responsible
for the consequences of their actions.
Responsibility is a key element of ethical action. Responsibility
means that you accept the potential costs, duties, and obligations for
the decisions you make.
Accountability is a feature of systems who took responsible action
and who is responsible.
Liability extends the concept of responsibility further to the area of
laws.
Due Process is a related feature of law-governed societies and is a
process in which laws are known and understood, and there is an
ability to appeal to higher authorities to ensure that the laws are
applied correctly.

Property Rights: Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property is considered to be the
intangible property created by individuals or
corporations.
- information technology has made it difficult to
protect intellectual property because
computerize information can be so easily
copied or distributed on networks.

Trade Secrets
Any intellectual work product-a formula,

device, pattern, or compilation of data used

for business purposes.
Trade secrets laws grant a monopoly on the
ideas behind the work product, but it can be
very tenous monopoly.
Trade secret law protects the actual ideas in a
work product, not only their manifestation.

Copyright
Is a statutory grant that protects creators of intellectual

property from having their work copied by others for any

purpose during the life of the authors plus an additional 70
years after the authors death.
Copyright protects against copying of entire programs or
their parts.

Patents
Grants the owner an exclusive monopoly on the ideas

behind and invention for 20 years.

The key concept in patent law are originality, novelty, and
invention.
the strength of patent protection is that it grants a
monopoly on the underlying concepts and ideas of
software.

Information rights: Privacy and freedom

in the internet age
Privacy is the claim of individuals to be left alone,
free from surveillance or interference from other
individuals or organizations, including the state.
- information technology and systems threaten
individual claims to privacy by making the invasion
of privacy, profitable, and effective.

Internet challenges to privacy

Internet technology has posed new challenges for

the protection of individuals privacy.

Each of these systems is capable of monitoring,
capturing, and storing communications that pass
trough it.
- Web sites can capture information about visitors
without their knowledge using cookie technology.
Cookies are small text files deposited on a
computer hard drive when a user visits Web sites.

How cookies identify web visitors

Patents
Grants the owner an exclusive monopoly on the ideas

behind and invention for 20 years.

The key concept in patent law are originality, novelty, and
invention.
the strength of patent protection is that it grants a
monopoly on the underlying concepts and ideas of
software.

System Quality: Data Quality and System

Errors
3 principal sources of poor system performance:
1. Software bugs and errors
2. Hardware or facility failures caused by natural or other
causes
3. Poor input data quality

Quality of life: Equity, Access, and

Boundaries
The negative social costs of introducing
information technologies and systems are
beginning to mouth along with the power of
technology.
Computers and information technologies
potentially can destroy valuable elements
of our culture and society even while they
bring us benefits.

Maintaining boundaries: Family, work, and Leisure

The traditional boundaries that separate work
from family and just plain leisure have been
weakened.
Family and friends historically have provided
powerful support mechanism for individuals, and
they act as balance points in a society by
preserving private life, providing a place for
people to collect their thoughts, allowing people
to think in a ways contrary to their employer and
dream.

Dependence and Vulnerability

Today, our businesses, governments,
schools, and private associations, such as
churches, are incredibly dependent on
information systems and are, therefore,
highly vulnerable if these systems fail.

Computer crime and abuse

New technologies, including computers, create new
opportunities for committing crime by creating new
valuable items to steal, new ways to steal them, and new
ways to harm others.
Computer crime is the commission of illegal acts trough
the use of a computer or against a computer system.
Computer Abuse is a commission of acts involving a
computer that may not be illegal but that are considered
unethical.
Spam is junk e-mail sent by an organization or individual
to a mass audience of internet users who have expressed
no interest in the product or service being marketed.

Health Risks: RSI, CVS, and Techno stress

The most common occupational diseases today
is repetitive stress injury (RSI).
RSI occurs when muscle groups are force
through repetitive actions often with high
impact loads or tens of thousands of
repetitions under low-impact loads(such as
working at a computer keyboard)
CVS (computer vision syndrome) refers to any
eyestrain conditions related to display screen
use in desktop computers, laptops, e-readers,
smart-phones, and hand-held video games.