Issues & Opinions

Four Ethical Issues ofthe Information Age

Today in western societies more peopie areempioyed collecting, handling and distribut-ing information than in any other occupation.Miilions of computers inhabit the earth andmany miilions of miles of opticai fiber, wireand air waves iink peopie, their computersand the vast array of information handiingdevices together. Our society is truly an infor-mation society, our time an information age.The question before us now is whether thekind of society being created is the one wewant. It is a question that shouid especiailyconcern those of us in the MIS community forwe are in the forefront of creating this newsociety.

There are many unique chailenges we face inthis age of information. They stem from thenature of information itseif. Information is themeans through which the mind expands andincreases its capacity to achieve its goais,often as the resuit of an input from anothermind. Thus, information forms the intellectuaicapital from which human beings craft theiriives and secure dignity.

However, the building of inteilectual capital isvuinerabie in many ways. For example, peo-ple's intellectuai capitai is Impaired when-ever they lose their personai information with-out being compensated for it, when they areprecluded access to information which is ofvalue to them, when they have revealed infor-mation they hoid intimate, or when they findout that the information upon which their liv-ing depends is in error. The social contractamong peopie in the information age mustdeal with these threats to human dignity. Theethicai issues involved are many and varied,however, it is helpful to focus on just four.These may be summarized by means of anacronym — PAPA.

Privacy: What information about one's seif orone's associations must a person reveai toothers, under what conditions and with whatsafeguards? What things can people keep tothemselves and not be forced to reveal toothers?

Accuracy: Who is responsibie for the authen-ticity, fideiity and accuracy of information?Simiiariy, who is to be heid accountabie forerrors in information and how is the injuredparty to be made whole?

Property: Who owns information? What arethe just and fair prices for its exchange?Who owns the channels, especially the air-ways, through which information is transmit-ted? How shouid access to this scarce re-source be aiiocated?

Accesslbiiity: What information does a per-son or an organization have a right or a privii-ege to obtain, under what conditions and withwhat safeguards?

PrivacyWhat information shouid one be required todivuige about one's self to others? Underwhat conditions? What information shouidone be able to keep strictiy to one's seif?These are among the questions that a concernfor privacy raises. Today more than ever cau-tious citizens must be asking these questions.

Two forces threaten our privacy. One is thegrowth of information technology, with its en-hanced capacity for surveillance, communi-cation, computation, storage, and retrievai. Asecond, and more insidious threat, is the in-creased value of information in decision-making. Information is increasingiy vaiuabieto poiicy makers; they covet it even if acquir-ing it invades another's privacy.

A case in point is the situation that occurreda few years ago in Fiorida. The Florida Legis-iature believed that the state's building codesmight be too stringent and that, as a resuit,the taxpayers were burdened by paying forbuildings which were underutilized. Severalstudies were commissioned. In one study atthe Tallahassee Community College, moni-tors were stationed at ieast one day a week inevery bathroom.

Every 15 seconds, the monitor observed theusage of the toilets, mirrors, sinks and otherfacilities and recorded them on a form. Thisdata was subsequently entered into a data-base for further analyses. Of course the stu-dents, faculty and staff complained bitteriy.

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feeling that this was an invasion of theirprivacy and a violation of their rights. Stateofficials responded however, that the studywould provide valuable information for policymaking, in effect the State argued that thevalue of the information to the administratorswas greater than any possibie indignities suf-fered by the students and others. Soon theACLU joined the fray. At their insistence thestudy was stopped, but oniy after the stategot the information it wanted.

Most invasions of privacy are not this drama-tic or this visibie. Rather, they creep up on usslowiy as, for example, when a group ofdiverse fiies relating to a person and his orher activities are integrated into a singie largedatabase. Collections of information revealintimate detaiis about a person and can there-by deprive the person of the opportunity toform certain professionai and personal rela-tionships. This is the ultimate cost of an inva-sion of privacy. So why do we integrate data-bases in the first place? It is because thebringing together of disparate data makes thedevelopment of new informational relation-ships possible. These new relationships maybe formed, however, without the affected par-ties' permission. You or. 1 may have con-tributed information about ourseives freely toeach of the separate databases but that by it-self does not amount to giving consent tosomeone to merge the data, especially if thatmerger might reveai something else about us.

Consider the story that was circuiating duringthe eariy 1970s. It's probably been embellish-ed in the retellings but it goes something iikethis, it seems that a coupie of programmersat the city of Chicago's computer center beganmatching tape files from many of the city'sdifferent data processing appiications onname and I.D. They discovered, for exampie,that several high paid city empioyers had un-paid parking fines. Boistered by this reveia-tion they pressed on. Soon they uncoveredthe names of several employees who werestiil listed on the register but who had notpaid a variety of fees, a few of whom ap-peared in the fiies of the aicohoiic and drugabuse program. When this finding was ieakedto the public the city empioyees, of course,were furious. They demanded to know whohad authorized the investigation. The answer

was that no one knew. Later, city officialsestablished rules for the computer center toprevent this form of invasion of privacy fromhappening again. In light of recent proposalsto develop a central federal databank con-sisting of fiies from most U.S. governmentagencies, this story takes on new meaning, itshows what can happen when a group of eagercomputer operators or unscrupulous adminis-trators start playing around with data.

The threat to privacy here is one that many ofus don't fully appreciate. I caii it the threat ofexposure by minute description. It stemsfrom the coliection of attributes about our-seives and use of the iogicai connector"and." For example, I may authorize one in-stitution to collect information "A" about me,and another institution to collect information"B" about me; but I might not want anyone topossess "A and B" about me at the sametime. When "0 " is added to the list of con-junctions, the possessor of the new informa-tion will khow even more about me. And then"D" is added and so forth. Each additionalweaving together of my attributes reveaismore and more about me. in the process, thefabric that is created poses a threat to myprivacy.

The threads which emanate from this fore-boding fabric usuaiiy converge in personneifiies and in dossiers, as Aleksandr Solzhenit-syn describes in The Cancer Ward:

". . . Every person fills out quite a fewforms in his iife, and each form containsan uncounted number of questions. Theanswer of just one person to one questionin one form is already a thread linking thatperson forever with the local center of thedossier department. Each person thus radi-ates hundreds of such threads, which aiitogether, run into the miiiions. If thesethreads were visibie, the heavens wouid bewebbed with them, and if they had sub-stance and resiiience, the buses, street-cars and the peopie themselves would nolonger be able to move.... They are neith-er visible, nor material, but they were con-stantly felt by man. . . .Constant awareness of these invisiblethreads naturaliy bred respect for the peo-ple in charge of that most intricate dossier

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department. It bolstered their authority."

The threads leading to Americans are many.The United States Congress' Privacy Protec-tion Commission, chaired by David F.Linowes, estimated that there are over 8,000different record systems in the files of thefederal government that contain individuallyidentifiable data on citizens. Each citizen, onaverage, has 17 fiies in federal agencies andadministrations. Using these files, for exam-ple, Sociai Security data has been matchedwith Selective Service data to reveai draftresisters. IRS data has been matched withother administrative records to tease outpossible tax evaders. Federal employmentrecords have been matched with delinquentstudent ioan records to identify some 46,860federal and military employees and retireeswhose pay checks might be garnished. InMassachusetts welfare officials sent tapesbearing welfare recipients Social Securitynumbers to some 117 banks to find outwhether the recipients had bank accounts inexcess of the allowable amount. During thefirst pass some 1600 potential vioiaters werediscovered.

Computer matching and the integration ofdata files into a central databank have enor-mous ethical implications. On the one hand,the new information can be used to uncovercriminals and to identify service requirementsfor the needy. On the other hand, it providespowerfui politicai knowledge for those fewwho have access to it and control over it. It isripe for privacy invasion and other abuses.For this reason many politicians have spokenout against centralized governmental data-banks. As early as 1966 Representative FrankHorton of New York described the threat asfollows:

"The argument is made that a centrai databank would use oniy the type of informa-tion that now exists and since no new prin-ciple is involved, existing types of safe-guards wili be adequate. This is fallacious.Good computermen know that one of themost practicai of our present safeguardsof privacy is the fragmented nature of pre-sent information. It is scattered in iittiebits and pieces across the geography and

years of our life. Retrieval is impracticaland often impossible. A central data bankremoves compieteiy this safeguard. I haveevery confidence that ways will be foundfor all of us to benefit from the great ad-vances of the computermen, but thosebenefits must never be purchased at theprice of our freedom to live as individualswith private lives . . ." [2, p. 6].

There is another threat Inherent in mergingdata files. Some of the data may be in error.More than 60,000 state and local agencies, forexample, provide information to the NationalCrime Information Center and it is accessedby law officers nearly 400,000 times a day. Yetstudies show that over 4% of the stolen vehi-cie entries, 6% of the warrant entries, andperhaps as much as one haif of the local lawenforcement criminai history records are inerror. At risk is the safety of the law enforce-ment officers who access it, the effectivenessof the police in controlling crime, and the free-dom of the citizens whose names appear inthe fiies. This ieads to a concern for accuracy.

AccuracyMisinformation has a way of fouling up peo-ple's lives, especially when the party with theinaccurate IniFormation has an advantage inpower and authority. Consider the piight ofone Louis Marches. Marches, an immigrant,was a hard working man who, with his wifeEiieen, finally saved enough money to pur-chase a home in Los Angeles during the1950s. They took out a long term ioan fromCrocker National Bank. Every month LouisMarches would walk to his neighborhoodbank, loan coupon book in hand, to make hispayment of $195.53. He always checked withcare to insured that the teller had stamped"paid" in his book on the proper line just op-posite the month for which the payment wasdue. And he continued to do this long afterthe bank had converted to its automated loanprocessing system.

One September a few years ago Marches wasnotified by the bank that he had failed tomake his current house payment. Marchesgrabbed his coupon book, marched to thebank and, in broken English that showedtraces of his old country heritage, tried to ex-

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piain to the teller that this dunning notice waswrong. He had made his payment he claimed.The stamp on his coupon book proved that hehad paid. The teller punched Marches' loannumber on the keyboard and reviewed theresuiting screen. Unfortunateiy she couidn'tconfirm Marches' ciaim, nor subsequentlycould the head teller, nor the branchmanager. When faced with a computer gen-erated screen that clearly showed that his ac-count was delinquent, this hierarchy of bank-ers simply ignored the entries recorded in hiscoupon book and aiso his attendant raving.Confused, Marches ieft the bank in disgust.

In October, however, Marches dutifully wentto the bank to make his next payment. He wastold that he couid not make his October pay-ment because he was one month in arrears.He again showed the teiler his stamped cou-pon book. She refused to accept it and hestormed out of the bank. In November he re-turned on schedule as he had done for over 20years and tried to make his payment again,only to be told that he was now two months inarrears. And so it went until inevitabiy thebank foreciosed. Eiieen iearned of the foreclo-sure from an overzeaious bank debt collectorwhile she was in bed recovering from a heartattack. She collapsed upon hearing the newsand suffered a near fatal stroke whichparalzyed her right side. Sometime duringthis melee Marches, who until this time haddone his own legai work, was introduced toan attorney who agreed to defend him. Theysued the bank. Ultimateiy, after months ofanguish, the Marches received a settiementfor $268,000. All that the bank officials whotestified couid say was, "Computers makemistakes. Banks make mistakes, too."

A special burden is placed on the accuracy ofinformation when people rely on it for mattersof life and death, as we increasingiy do. Thiscame to iight in a recent $3.2 million lawsuitcharging the National Weather Service for fail-ing to predict accurately a storm that ragedon the southeast slope of Georges Bank in1980. As Peter Brown steered his ship — theSea Fever — from Hyannis Harbor toward hislobster traps near Nova Scotia, he monitoredweather conditions using a iong range, singlesideband radio capable of receiving weather

forecasts at ieast 100 miles out to sea. Theforecasts assured him that his destinationarea near Georges Bank, although it mightget showers, was safe from the hurricane-likestorm that the weather bureau had predictedwouid go far to the east of his course. So hekept to his course. Soon, however, his shipwas engulfed in howiing winds of 80 knotsand waves cresting at 60 feet. In the turbu-lence Gary Brown, a crew member, waswashed overboard.

The source of the fatai error was failure of alarge scale information system which col-lects data from high atmosphere balloons,satellites, ships, and a series of buoys. Thisdata is then transmitted to a National Oceano-graphic and Atmospheric Administrationcomputer which anaiyzes it and producesforecasts. The forecasts, in turn, are broad-cast widely.

The forecast Peter Brown relied on when hedecided to proceed into the North Atianticwas in error because just one buoy — station44003 Georges Bank — was out of service. Asa resuit the wind speed and direction data itnormaily provided were lost to the computermodei. This caused the forecasted trajectoryof the storm to be canted by severai miles,

, deceiving skipper Peter Brown and conse-quentiy sending Gary Brown to his death.

Among the questions this raises for us in theinformation age are these: "How many LouisMarches and Gary Browns are there outthere?" "How many are we creating every-day?" The Marches received a iarge financialsettiement; but can they ever be repaid for theirreparabie harm done to them and to theirdignity? Honour Brown, Gary's widow, re-ceived a judgment in her case; but has shebeen repaid for the ioss of Gary? The point isthis: We run the risk of creating Gary Brownsand Louis Marches every time we design in-formation systems and place information indatabases which might be used to make deci-sions. So it is our responsibility to be vigilantin the pursuit of accuracy in information. To-day we are producing so much informationabout so many people and their activities thatour exposure to problems of inaccuracy isenormous. And this growth in informationalso raises another issue: Who owns it?

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Issues & Opinions

PropertyOne of the most complex issues we face as asociety is the question of intellectual proper-ty rights. There are substantial economic andethical concerns surrounding these rights;concerns revolving around the special attri-butes of information itself and the means bywhich it is transmitted. Any individual item ofinformation can be extremely costly to pro-duce in the first instance. Yet, once it is pro-duced, that information has the illusive quali-ty of being easy to reproduce and to sharewith others. Moveover, this replication cantake place without destroying the originai.This makes information hard to safeguardsince, unlike tangible property, it becomescommunicable and hard to keep it to one'sself. It is even difficult to secure appropriatereimbursements when somebody else usesyour information.

We currently have several imperfect institu-tions that try to protect intellectual propertyrights. Copyrights, patents, encryption, oathsof confidentiality, and such old fashionedvaiues as trustworthiness and loyalty are themost commonly used protectors of our in-tellectual property. Problem issues, however,stiil abound in this area. Let us focus on justone aspect: artifical inteliigence and its ex-panding subfield, expert systems.

To fully appreciate our moral plight regardingexpert systems it is necessary to run back theclock a bit, about two hundred years, to thebeginnings of another society: the steamenergy-industrial society. From this vantagepoint we may anticipate some of the pro-blems of the information society.

As the industrial age unfolded in England andWestern Europe a significant change tookplace in the relationship between people andtheir work. The steam engine replaced man-power by reducing the level of personal physi-cal energy required to do a job. The factorysystem, as Adam Smith described in hisessay on the pin factory, effectively replacedthe laborer's contribution of his energy and ofhis skiils. This was done by means of newmachines and new organizational forms. Theprocess was carried even further in theFrench community of Lyon. There, JosephMarie Jacquard created a weaving loom in

which a system of rectanguiar, punchedholes captured the weaver's skiil for directingthe ioom's mechanical fingers and for con-trolling the warp and weft of the threads.These Jacquard looms created a new kind ofcapital which was produced by disembodyingenergy and skill from the craftsmen and thenreembodying it into the machines. In effect,an exchange of property took place. Weavingskills were transferred from the craftsman tothe owner of the machines. With this techno-logical innovation Lyon eventually regainedits position as one of the leading silk pro-ducers in the world. The weavers themselves,however, suffered unemployment and degra-dation because their craft was no longereconomicaily viable. A weavers value as aperson and a craftsman was taken away bythe new machines.

There is undoubtedly a harbinger of things tocome in these 18th century events. As theyunfoided civilization witnessed one of thegreatest outpourings of moral philosophy ithas as ever seen: Adam Smith's Theory ofMoral Sentiments and his Wealth of Nations:the American revolution and its ciassic docu-ments on liberty and freedom; the Frenchrevolution and its concern for fraternity andequality; John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Ben-tham and their ethical call for the greatestgood for the greatest number, and ImmanuelKant and his categorical imperative whichleads to an ethicai Utopia called the "king-dom of ends." Ail of this ethical initiative tookplace within the historically short span oftime of about 50 years. Common to theseideas was a spirit which sought a new mean-ing in human life and which demanded that ajust allocation be made of social resources.

Today that moral spirit may be welling upwithin us again. Only this time it has a dif-ferent provocator. Nowhere is the potentialthreat to human dignity so severe as it is inthe age of information technology, especiallyin the field of artificial intelligence. Practi-tioners of artificiai inteiligence proceed by ex-tracting knowledge from experts, workers andthe knowledgeable, and then implanting it in-to computer software where it becomes capi-tal in the economic sense. This process of"disemminding" knowledge from an indivi-duai, and subsequently "emminding" it into

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machines transfers control of the property tothose who own the hardware and software. Isthis exchange of property warranted? Con-sider some of the most successfui commer-cial artificiai intelligence systems of the day.Who owns, for example, the chemical knowl-edge contained in DYNDREL, the medicalknowledge contained in MYCIN, or the geo-logical knowledge contained in PROSPEC-TOR. How is the contributor of his knowl-edge to be compensated? These are amongthe issues we must resoive as more intelli-gent information systems are created.

Concern over intellectual property rights re-lates to the content of information. There aresome equally pressing property rights issuessurrounding the conduits through which in-formation passes. Bandwidth, the measure ofcapacity to carry information, is a scarce anduitimately fixed commodity. It is a "com-mons." A commons is iike an empty vessel in-to which drops of water can be placed freelyand easiiy until it fiils and overflows. Then itscapacity is gone. As a resource it is finite.

In an age in which people benefit by the com-munication of information, there is a tenden-cy for us to treat bandwidth and transmissioncapacity as a commons in the same way asdid the herdsmen in Garrett Hardin's poig-nant essay, "The Tragedy of the Commons,"(subtitied: "The popuiation problem has notechnicai solution; it requires a fundamentalextension in morality). Each herdsman re-ceived direct benefits from adding an animalto a pasture shared in common. As long asthere was plenty of grazing capacity theiosses due to the animai's consumption werespread among them and felt only indirectlyand proportionaliy much iess. So each herds-man was motivated to increase his flock. Inthe end, however, the commons was destroyedand everybody lost.

Today our airways are becoming ciogged witha plethora of data, voice, video, and messagetransmission. Organizations and individuaisare expanding their use of communicationsbecause it is prof itabie for them to do so. Butif the soeiai checks on the expanded use ofbandwidth are inadequate, and a certain de-gree of temperance isn't followed, we mayfind that jamming and noise wiii destroy the

flow of clear information through the air. Howwiii the iimited resource of bandwidth beaiiocated? Who will have access? This ieadsus to the fourth issue.

AccessOur main avenue to information is throughliteracy. Literacy, since about 1500 A.D. whenthe Syrians first conceived of a consonantalphabet, has been a requirement for fuil par-ticipation in the fabric of society. Each inno-vation in information handiing, from the in-vention of paper to the modern computer, hasplaced new demands on achieving literacy. Inan information society a citizen must pos-sess at least three things to be literate:

One must have the inteilectual skiiis todeai with information. These are skiiissuch as reading, writing, reasoning, andcaiculating. This is a task for education.One must have access to the informationtechnologies which store, convey and pro-cess information. This includes libraries,radios, teievisions, teiephones, and increas-ingly, personal computers or terminalsiinked via networks to mainframes. This isa probiem in social economics.Finaily, one must have access to the infor-mation itself. This requirement returns tothe issue of property and is aiso a prob-lem in social economics.

These requirements for iiteracy are a functionof both the knowledge ievel and the economiclevel of the individuai. Unfortunateiy, formany people in the worid today both of theseieveis are currentiy deteriorating.

There are powerful factors working both forand against contemporary iiteracy in our or-ganizations and in our society. For example,the cost of computation, as measured in, saydoliars per MIPS (miilions of instructions persecond), has gone down exponentially sincethe introduction of computers. This trend hasmade technology more accessible and eco-nomicaiiy attainabie to more peopie. However,corporations and other pubiic and privateorganizations have benefited the most fromthese economies. As a result, cost economiesin computation are primarily available to mid-die and upper income people. At the sametime computer usage flourishes among some.

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we are creating a large group of informationpoor people who have no direct access to themore efficient computational technology andwho have iittie training in its use.

Reflect for a moment on the soeiai effects ofeiectronicaiiy stored databases. Prior to theirinvention, vast quantities of data about publi-cations, news events, economic and soeiaistatistics, and scientific findings have beenavaiiable in printed, microfilm, or microficheform at a reiativeiy low cost. For most of usaccess to this data has been substantiallyfree. We merely went to our public or schooiiibrary. The library, in turn, paid a few hundreddollars for the service and made it avaiiableto whomever asked for it. Today, however,much of this information is being convertedto computerized databases and the cost toaccess these databases can run in the thou-sands of doiiars.

Frequently, access to databases is gainedoniy by means of acquiring a terminal or per-sonal computer. For exampie, if you want ac-cess to the New Yori< Times index through theMead Corporation service you must first haveaccess to a terminal and communication lineand then pay additional hook-up and accessfees in order to obtain the data. This nneansthat the people who wish to use this servicepossess severai things. First, they know thatthe database exists and how to use it. Second,they have acquired the requisite technoiogyto access it. And third, they are able to paythe fees for the data. Thus the educationaland economic ante is really quite high forplaying the modern information game. Manypeople cannot or choose not to pay it andhence are exciuded from participating fully inour society. In effect, they become informa-tion "drop outs" and in the iong run willbecome the source of many soeiai probiems.

PAPAPrivacy, accuracy, property and accessibiiity,these are the four major issues of informationethics for the information age. Max Plank's1900 conception that energy was released insmail discrete packets called "quanta" notonly gave rise to atomic theory but aiso per-mitted the development of information tech-nology as well. Semiconductors, transistors.

integrated circuits, photoelectric ceils,vacuum tubes, and ferrite cores are amongthe technological yieid of this scientifictheory. In a curious way quantum theoryunderiies the four issues as weil. Plank'stheory, and all that followed it, have ied us toa point where the stakes surrounding society'spoiicy agenda are incredibiy high. At stakewith the use of nuciear energy is the very sur-vivai of mankind itself. If we are unwise wewiii either biow ourseives up or contaminateour worid forever with nuciear waste. At stakewith the increased use of information tech-nology is the quality of our lives should we, orour chiidren, survive. If we are unwise manypeople will suffer information bankruptcy ordesolation.

Our moral imperative is ciear. We must insurethat information technology, and the informa-tion it handies, are used to enhance the digni-ty of mankind. To achieve these goals wemust formulate a new social contract, onethat insures everyone the right to fulfill his orher own human potential.

In the new soeiai contract information sys-tems should not unduly invade a person's pri-vacy to avoid the indignities that the studentsin Tallahassee suffered.

Information systems must be accurate toavoid the indignities the Marches and theBrowns suffered.

Information systems should protect the via-biiity of the fixed conduit resource throughwhich it is transmitted to avoid noise andjamming pollution and the indignities of "TheTragedy of the Commons."

Information systems shouid protect the sanc-tity of intellectual property to avoid the indig-nities of unwitting "disemmindment" ofknowiedge from individuals.

And information systems shouid be accessi-bie to avoid the indignities of information il-literacy and deprivation.

This is a tall order; but it is one that we in theMiS community shouid address. We must as-sume some responsibility for the soeiai con-tract that emerges from the systems that wedesign and impiement. In summary, we mustinsure that the flow of those little packets of

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energy and information cailed quanta, thatMax Plank bequeathed to us some 85 yearsago, are used to create the kind of world inwhich we wish to iive.

References[1] Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I., The Cancer

Ward, Dial Press, New York, New York,1968.

[2] U.S. House of Representatives, The Com-puter and Invasion of Privacy, U.S. Govern-ment Printing Office, Washington D.C,1966.

Richard 0 . MasonCarr P. Collins DistinguishedProfessor of ManagementInformation SciencesEdwin L. Cox School of BusinessSouthern Methodist UniversityDaiias, Texas

12 MIS Quarterly/March 1986