12/5: Ethical & Social Issues in IS• Define ethics, responsibility, accountability, liability,

due process• Technology trends that raise ethical issues• Ethical analysis• An ethical dilemma to consider• Four moral dimensions of the information age

– Information rights & obligations

– Property rights

– Accountability & control

– System quality

• Computer crime

Definitions• Ethics: Principles of right & wrong used by free

individuals to make choices in their behavior.• Responsibility: Accepting the potential costs,

duties, and obligations for one’s decisions.• Accountability: Ways of assessing responsibility

for decisions made and actions taken.• Liability: Laws that permit individuals to

recover the damages done to them by others.• Due process: Laws are known & understood,

and decisions can be appealed to higher authorities.

Trends raising ethical issues• Increased dependence on computers

– Companies shut down if their hardware, software, or networks shut down.

• Multiplying databases– Remember Infospace.com? – Profiling: Use of computers to combine data from

multiple sources to crease electronic dossiers of detailed information on individuals.

– Is this an invasion of privacy?

Ethical Analysis• Identify & describe clearly the facts.

• Define the conflict or dilemma, identify the higher-order values involved.

• Identify the stakeholders.

• Identify the options that can be reasonably taken.

• Identify the potential consequences of your options.

Ethical Perspectives to Consider• Do unto others as you would have them do unto

you.• If it’s not right for everyone to do, it’s not right

for anyone.• If an action cannot be taken repeatedly, it’s not

right to take it at all.• Take the action that achieves the greatest good.• Take the action that incurs the least potential

cost.• There’s no free lunch. Everything, unless

specified otherwise, is owned by someone.

An Ethical Dilemma to Consider• Employee monitoring on the Internet

– Overtime is up at your small insurance company.– Network analysis shows the following:– Apply ethical analysis

User Minutes online URL visited

Kelly, Chris 455796

www.stltoday.com www.yahoo.comwww.insuremarket.com

Miller, Bob 11243

www.travelocity.com www.sharperimage.com

Talbot, Erin 1232773

www.e-trade.com www.wine.com www.ebay.com

Four Moral Dimensions of the Information Age

• Information rights & obligations

• Property rights

• Accountability & control

• System quality

Information rights & obligations• Privacy: The claim of individuals to be left

alone, free from surveillance or interference from others, including the state.

• Fair Information Practices– Privacy Act of 1974

• Internet practices, cookies, spamming

• Is it legitimate or ethical to keep unobtrusive surveillance?

Property Rights• Intellectual property: intangible property created

by individuals or corporations that is subject to protections under trade secret, copyright, or patent law.

Property Rights• Trade secret

– Any intellectual work or product used for business classified as belonging to that business, providing that it is not based on information in the public domain.

• Copyright– Protects creators of intellectual property against

copying by others for any purpose for 28 years.

• Patent law– Exclusive monopoly on the ideas behind an

invention for 17 years.

©©

Software Piracy• “The unauthorized copying or use of software

for which you have not paid the appropriate licensing fee”

• Estimate: $11 billion/year lost to piracy– In early 1990s, Lotus

estimated that half of its revenue was lost per year to software piracy

• Estimate: 2 of 5 pieces of software are pirated

Accountability & Control• Who is to be held responsible for faulty

computers? Software?

• What are the societal ramifications of doing so?

System quality• What is an acceptable level of bugs?

• At what point should software be released to others?

Computer Crime• “Any illegal activity

using computer software, data, or access as the object, subject, or instrument of the crime”

Theft: Fraud & Abuse• Trojan horses: “insertion of false information

into a program to profit from its outcome”

• Data & time bombs: inserting time- or event-triggered code into programs maliciously

• Salami-slicing: little bits of theft that add up

• Data diddling: EX: diverting charges