Ethics - Rajat Singla

8/9/2019 Ethics - Rajat Singla

1/28

Ethical & Social Issues in

Information Systems

Brought to you by:Rajat Singla

Roll No. 21


2/28

Subtopics:

Responsibility, Accountability, and Liability

Computer-Related Liability

Ethics and System Quality: Data Quality andSystem Errors

IT and Quality of Life Issues: Equity, Access and

Boundaries

Health Risks: RSI, CVS, and Technostress


3/28

Basic concepts: Responsibility, Accountability, and Liability

Responsibility: Accepting the potential costs, duties, and

obligations for decisions

Accountability: Mechanisms for identifying responsibleparties

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


4/28

Accountability, Liability, and Control

Many of our laws and court decisions establishingprecedents in the area of accountability, liability, andcontrol were firmly in place long before computers wereinvented. Many of them date back to the early 1900s, and

some simply don't make sense in this day and age. That's what we were referring to when we talked about new

questions for organizations, companies, and the workplace ingeneral. No issue makes this subject more important than theInternet laws our government has tried and still tries to pass.


5/28

Accountability, Liability, and Control

New technology challenges existing liability law and social

practices for holding individuals and orgs accountable for

the creation and sale of new IS/IT products and services

Examples

n If a person is injured by a machine controlled bysoftware, who is liable?

n Should electronic services like America-On-line be held

accountable for offensive material on their Web site?

n If you outsource your information processing, can youhold your external vendor liable for damages to your

customers?

5


6/28


7/28

Liability of Electronic Information Services

Are such services liable for the content of their transmissions?

Telephone companies are not liable for their transmissions

Radio and television are liable What should we do with respect to the Internet, America-On-

line ?

What happens when one company provides telephone, cable,

and Internet access services over one wire?

7


8/28

Levels of the Accountability, Liability, and

Control Issues Ethical issue (individuals)

Are individuals and organizations that create, produce,and sell information systems morally responsible forthe consequences of their use?

If so under what conditions? Social issue (society)

What should our expectations be? Should thedeveloper of the service be responsible for harm orshould the organization that purchased the service beheld accountable?

Political issues (laws)

Should legislation impose liability or restrict liability onservice providers?

8


9/28

Who is Liable?

The producer ofSW code?

The producer of the machine who should test the code?

The organization/facility (e.g. Hospital, Bank) where thedamage was done?


10/28

Computer-Related Liability

Information Systems executives are responsible for harm done bysystems developed by their staffs.

When SW is a part of a machine, and the machine harms someonephysically or economically, the producer of the SW and theoperator can be held liable for damages.

If the SW acts like a book by storing and displaying information,then it is very difficult (if not impossible) to hold SW producer liablefor their products.

Historically, print publishers have not been held liable inaccordance with freedom of expression (with the exception of

fraud and defamation) Telephone Systems have not been held liable for the messages

transmitted, but Internet Service Providers (AOL, MSN, etc) can beheld liable for the offensive content of the postings by their users.


11/28

IT can challenge our ability to identify who is responsible

for actions involving systems that injure people.

IT can make it difficult to assign liability and restore

injured persons.

IT

raises issues about who should control informationsystems that have the potential for injuring citizens.

IT: Accountability, Liability, and ControlIT: Accountability, Liability, and Control


12/28

Yahoo Case in France

Yahoo case in France in 2000, auctioning Nazi-

related materials

The court ruled that even the server in the US

should stop auctioning Nazi-related stuff (fine: US

10,000 per day)

Advocate of freedom of speech, and the rule of the

Internet as an open source media.


13/28

Example: ChoicePoint.com is a leading provider of decision-

making information to businesses and government

agencies that helps reduce fraud and mitigate risk. It lost tocriminal business firms 130,000 personal records of

California residents in February 2005. This loss may result in

the victims losing credit, being denied an apartment, losing

employment, or experiencing an identity theft.

What are the issues of accountability, liability, and control

in this case?

IT: Accountability, Liability, and Control


14/28

No software program is perfect, errors will be made, even if the

errors have a low probability of occurring. Errors in Windows

operating systems were notorious. At what point should softwarebe shipped? What kind of disclaimer statements might be

appropriate?

No database is without errors. In fact, most consumer and

government personal information databases have errors rangingfrom 10-20% of the data records being either inaccurate,

incomplete, or ambiguous. How should decision makers treat this

kind of information in order to be fair to data subjects?

Ethics and System Quality:

Data Quality and System Errors


15/28

System Quality: Data Quality and System Errors

Three principal sources of poor system performance:1. SW bugs and errors (there is no perfect SW, no industry testing

standards for producing SW of acceptable performance)

2. HW or facility failures

3. Poor quality ofinput data

Ethical Issues: At what point to release the software/services forconsumption? What are you obliged to know about the quality of yourSW?

Social Issues: Should people be encouraged to believe systems areperfect?

Political Issues: Laws of responsibility and accountability. The Standards Council ofCanada sets Canadian standards, including the

international ISO 9000 and ISO 14000. (penalties for failure to abide bythe standards are unclear)


16/28

System Quality: Data Quality and System

Errors

As we rely on Information Systems more, data quality issuesare gaining importance. These issues affect you as aconsumer and as a user. When the credit reporting agenciesmess up your credit record and you can't get a car loan,

whose fault is it? Yours or the credit agency's? If the Electric Company doesn't get its Y2K bug fixed and you

lose power on January 1, 2000, whose problem is that?What if you're driving down the road, the computer chipcontrolling your brake system fails, and you have a rather

nasty crash? Who is at fault? You, the car company, or thecompany that made the computer chip?


17/28

Balancing Power: Center Versus Periphery: Is IT

centralizing decision-making power in the hands of a few,

or is it allowing many more people to participate in

decisions that affect their lives?

Rapidity of change: Reduced response time to

competition: The business you work for may not be able

to respond to rapidly changing IT-enabled market places.

There goes your job offshore!

Maintaining boundaries: Family, work, and leisure: Do

anything anywhere environment blurs the boundaries

between work, vacation, and family time

IT and Quality of Life Issues: Equity, Access,

and Boundaries


18/28

Dependence and vulnerability: There are few regulatory

standards to protect us from the failure of complex

electrical, communications, and computer networks upon

which we all depend.

Computer crime: Commission of illegal acts through the

use of a computer or against a computer system is on the

increase. Spam is now illegal (a federal and state felony

offense), and phishing to defraud people is also a felony.

But 70% of e-mail is now spam, and phishing crimes are

the fastest growing Internet fraud. China has developed a

team ofCyber hackers and they can hack any computer.

Example: Hacking, Sniffing


and Boundaries


19/28


and Boundaries

Computer abuse:

Unethical but not necessarily illegal acts. Adware programs that

alter a persons browser are not illegal but most of us would not

want this to happen (without knowing about it).

Commission of acts involving a computer that may not be illegal

but are considered unethical. Example: Spamming

Productivity drain at work: Use of computer and Internet access

for non-work related purposes

Question: Does employer have the right to monitor employeesemail and internet activities?


20/28


and Boundaries

Employment: Trickle-down technology and reengineering job loss:

Workers lose their jobs due to automation, re-engineering the workforce

and outsourcing

The rapid development of the Internet has made it possible to offshore

hundreds of thousands of jobs from high-wage countries to low- wage

countries. Reengineering existing jobs using IT also results in few jobs

(generally). While this benefits low-wage countries enormously, the

costs are paid by high-wage country workers.

Equity and access: While 500 million people worldwide are on theInternet, billions of others are not. Within the United States, the digital

divide has declined among ethnic groups, but still persists. The divide

between men and women has largely disappeared.


21/28

Health Risks: RSI, CVS, and Technostress

IT has been the source of several diseases.

As managers, you should be acutely aware of the health issues

caused by computer usage.

Question: Why?

Because these health issues cost businesses huge amounts of

dollars each year in medical treatment claims and lostproductivity.


22/28


23/28

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS):Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS):

Type of RSI

Pressure on the median nerve through the wrists bony carpal

tunnel structure produces pain.

The pressure is caused by constant repetitions of keystrokes.

Symptoms ofCTS include numbness, shooting pain, inability to

grap objects and tingling.

Millions of workers have been diagnosed with CTS.


24/28

Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS):Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS):

Eyestrain condition.Eyestrain condition.

Related to computer display screen usage.Related to computer display screen usage.

Symptoms include headaches, blurred vision, and dry and irritatedSymptoms include headaches, blurred vision, and dry and irritated

eyes.eyes.


25/28

Technostress

Stress induced by computer use.

Symptoms include aggravation, hostility toward humans,

impatience, and fatigue.

According to Experts, humans working continuously withcomputers come to expect others humans and human institutions

to behave like computers, providing instant responses ,

attentiveness, and an absence of emotions.

Related to high levels of early retirements from computer intenseoccupations and elevated levels of drug and alcohol abuse


26/28

Summary

Technological trends are posing new situations and questions wehaven't had to deal with before.

Since it's your world and your future, you should be concerned andbecome involved in their resolution. Ethics in an informationsociety holds each person responsible for his or her actions.

Each person is accountable for everything he or she does, nomatter how anonymous the action may seem. Each person is liablefor the consequences his or her actions may inflict on other peopleand society as a whole If it sounds too good to be true, it is.

If it's illegal or immoral or unethical outside the computing arena,it's probably illegal, and immoral and unethical in thecomputing arena. If you are aware of a problem or are a victim

of unethical, illegal actions, and you don't do something about it,you're part of the problem.

Managers have an obligation to ensure policies are in place to helpguide their employees inthe ethical and legal use of technology.

It's your new world - use it wisely.


27/28

Wikipedia ( need less to say !! )

Some great Hollywood Flicks like The Bourne Series

Management Information System Tenth Edition

Kenneth C. Laudon, Jane P. Laudon

References:


28/28

Open to Questions / Comments /Compliments ( ) !

Thank You !

Ethics - Rajat Singla

Documents

Transcript of Ethics - Rajat Singla