Computer Ethics

Chapter 14 – Computers: Understanding Technology

Ethics

• Ethics are the internalized principles we use to determine whether some action is morally right or wrong

• Normative ethics involves determining a standard or norm that underlies ethical behavior

• Applied ethics involves the application of normative ethical beliefs to real-life situations

Computer Ethics

• Privacy Protection

• Property Protection

• Personal and Social Issues

Privacy Protection

• Public Information Availability – the Internet has expanded access to a wide variety of personal information – birth records, marriage licenses, divorce records, bankruptcy records, home sales and payment of taxes, traffic records, criminal records – that previously was available, but access was difficult

Privacy Protection (cont.)

• Creation of profiles of individual consumers through tracking online behavior through cookies

• Tracking of location of cell phones, cars – could anyone track you down, or would there be pressure to provide this capability to spouses, significant others, etc.

Protection from Commercial Threats to Privacy

• Industry self-regulation – privacy statements

• Government regulation – Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 is aimed at protecting children under the age of 13

• Consumer self-protection

Government Threats to Computer Privacy

• FBI’s Carnivore program – an internet wiretap program

Workplace Threats to Privacy

• Companies can use electronic surveillance of employees in the workplace except where it has pledged not to do this

Property Protection Issues

• Damage due to viruses and hackers

• Plagiarism is use of other’s ideas and creations (their intellectual property) without permission and attribution

• Patents awards ownership of invention for a number of years, whereas copyright awards ownership of artistic and literary products to their creators

Fair Use

• It is permissible to use another’s material without permission in certain circumstances under a doctrine known as fair use. For example,– Authors may use limited excerpts of

copyrighted material in their own work– Making a photocopy of a portion of a book or

article is often permissible

Personal and Social Issues

• Pornography– Laws against distributing or possessing child

pornography– Companies have fired people for visiting

pornographic sites on company computers– Self-protection –

• Internet Explorer and 3rd party filtering programs• Google allows you to filter search results

Personal and Social Issues (cont.)

• The digital divide is the term used to describe the gap between those who have access to computers and those who do not – urban/rural, race, income/wealth, disabled

• The gaps are getting smaller