IMPORTANCE OF ETHICS IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Abstract:

The rapid development in information technology communication has created a wave which has to be noticed. It would not be enough if we are to look at the benefits and empowerment we get from our digital tools, these have been evidenced by the problems and challenges they have posed and continue posing to us, our life’s and organizations. Today, they have become our partners in the sense that they help us to make decisions, process massive processes in a short limited time. So their usage and the relationship that they create matters, thus they tend to raise moral concerns; these are because they pose ethical issues when they create new possibilities for human action. New technological possibilities are not always good or purely good; often they have mixed value, so they need to be evaluated.

                                                                    Introduction

The borderless world of information technology has created enormous possibilities for individual and institutional behavior. We could have not reached the moon without computers, nor could we have the kind of global communication systems we now have. Since the early days, computer technology has been far from stagnant, rather frequently developing with each new innovation. These have been made easy by that these new developments made it possible to develop something new. People are no longer satisfied; they are always looking for something new. And these new things do not develop themselves in most cases if not all.

There are Professionals and individuals who are entangled with this work. IT on its own should not be left behind, and fortunate enough, there are some bodies which consider these. Bodies like ACM (Association of Computing Machinery), IEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering) and others which have taken it to another level.

These professional in IT should appreciate and see the importance of Ethics in IT before they will even consider it. They will just know about it as “something” that exist and they should remember, but not really applying it, because, there can be much talk but less action; talk is cheap, action is expensive.

Definitions:

Ethics has been defined in many ways by different people depending on their different perspectives, but the goal is to become ethical people, particularly in IT profession. With these different definitions from different angles, we will look at them to set the way for our topic discussion.

A system of accepted beliefs which control behavior, based on moral. It stresses on idealistic standards of right and wrong.

 Cambridge Dictionary Online

 According to James Moor (1985), he suggested that we think of the ethical questions surrounding computer as policy vacuums. Computer and information technology creates innumerable opportunities, and we find a vacuum of policies on how to make these choices. The central task of computer ethics, Moor argues is to determine what we should do and what our policies should be. This includes consideration of both personal and social values. Thus this paper will highlight “The importance of ethics among the Information Technology (IT) professionals. 

In most societies, a system of laws codifies the most significant ethical standards and provides a mechanism for holding people, organizations, and even governments accountable. (Laudon, et al, 1996)

Morf (1999: 265) “Ethics is the moral principle that individuals inject into their decision making process and that helps temper the last outcome to conform to the norms of their society”.

It can be summed up that ethics have to do with social context, moral and legal issues. But these do not mean that IT ethical issues are unique. “There is nothing new under the sun.”, as the old saying says.  These may threaten privacy, but privacy issues have been around for ages, and they have centered on new technologies. With IT, it allows us to challenge our traditional conception, ideas, thoughts and our system of accountability because it allows us to do many things remotely and remain unknown, making it difficult or diffusing information our sense of responsibility for the effects of our actions.

This paper increases the ability of IT professional to first recognize and then responsibly confront moral issues raised by technological activity, and the importance of ethics in IT profession:

Ethics are often very subjective, and connected to our emotions and our basic sense of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. This means that it can be difficult to define ethics rigorously. There are great varieties of ethical issues that need to be considered in IT.

Ethical Issues in IT:

Information Technology is the scientific, technological and engineering disciplines and the management techniques used in information handling and processing; their applications; computers and their interaction with men and machines; and associated social, economic and cultural matters” (British Advisory Council for Applied Research and Development, 1980).

IT does not only involve technological aspects, but also the main component of information which represents data, information, and knowledge. IT assists and extends the ability of human to capture, process, store, understand, use, and spread information at a speed and scale which had never been thought possible in previous time. Some of the impact and changes of IT are obvious, but many are subtle. Thus and through all these expansion, Ethics helps to safeguard the assets of the organization and also individuals. In a workplace where individuals work without guidelines and regulations controlling them, there is a tendency for a lapse, a loop hole will be created which can in turn be used to manipulate others or the assets of the company. So, if in a given environment, professional are kept aware, not only aware but also practice it, the environment will be conducive to a certain extent.

Ethics is necessary in the sense that there is a vacuum which has been created by new evolutions. These has been emphasized by James Moor (1985), he suggested that we think as ethical questions as questions surrounding computer and information technology as policy vacuums.  Computer and information technology creates innumerable opportunities. This means that we are comforted with choices about whether and how to pursue these opportunities, and we find a vacuum of policies on how to make these choices. The central task of computer ethics, Moor argues, is to determine what we should do and what our policies should be. These include both personal and social ethics.

These is also clear, when in the past, less people took seriously the keeping and security of data. It was just placed there and few only cared about them. Now these are the same files that contain the whole life and details of people. It’s their money inside, their privacy, every that concerns them and they are confidential. Any access to them might either cost them loss of jobs, life and even can declare them to be bankrupt.

With the invisibility factor that Information technology possesses, it is vital for ethics to be considered. .

Most of the time and under most conditions computer operations are invisible. And some individuals are made to think they are being helped rather they are being scammed. Dr. Moor touched on the invisibility factor of computer technology. The invisibility factor is essentially the fact that computer operations themselves are largely invisible. “One may be quite knowledgeable about the inputs and outputs of a computer and only dimly aware of the internal processing (Moor J, 1985).” In regards to ethics, the invisibility factor increases the difficulty of establishing computer policies, due to the fact that many actions in computing are hidden. As an example, Dr. Moor elaborates on a case in which a programmer wrote software that would steal fractional interest from multiple bank accounts and transfer the funds to another account. In such case, the obvious computer fraud would largely go unnoticed because of the hidden nature of this fraud. While this example is a classic example of stealing, there may be other cases of invisibility factor that may or may not be considered ethical. For example, as Dr. Moor states, the American Airlines’ reservation system –SABRE was built in such way that it would favor their (AA’s) flights over their competitions’ flights. Is the use of such system ethical? Were the AA representatives aware this “feature”? Was such feature intentional or was this simply a programming “bug”? It is difficult to answer these questions, which is precisely why realizing the existence of the invisible factor is so important.

Types of ethical issues in IT:

There are a great variety of ethical issues in IT that need to be considered, and we will consider some of the different types of it in this section:

Hacking

Hacking is to illegally access a protected system. Hackers break into a system for a variety of reasons, Hacking can be undertaken in such as the wish to understand how a system works or the wish to damage a system or to steel information etc. Such as breaking into a banking system and transferring money from anyone’s account to the illegal beneficiary’s account.  Alternatively, there might be a desire to alert people to the fact that a system is insecure and needs improving. Due to this some argue that there are ‘hacker ethics’. A hacker says that: "The ethics behind hacking and the actions taken by hackers constitute a philosophical manifesto that transcends our understanding of the art" (, und. p.1). Hacking can present a moral dilemma. This is because they sometimes offer their expertise to help to protect organizations against other hackers. Hackers cannot just wander into a system, as they could into an unlocked door. Instead, it requires a lot of skill. With this skill hackers can demonstrate that a system is insecure and needs improving. In this way, it could be argued that hackers play a valuable role. However, many hackers argue that hacking might lead to some improvements, but that it causes such a lot of disruption that it is not worth it in the long-run.

Data Errors

Entry of data into the databases is prone to human and device error. Complacency, negligence or a system error during the process of data entry for individuals or companies often leads to serious mistakes that may cause a lot of problems and losses for the individuals or companies such as financial losses through wrong calculation or entry of tax amount etc.

Data Theft

Data theft is another very big ethical issue these days among IT professionals. The IT professionals by virtue of their profession have access to a lot of private and secret information such as credit card details, social security details, bank account details and their passwords etc. They may use these unethically and illegally to transfer money, or to do shopping or pay their own bills. Time and again cases of data theft keep on surfacing in the IT world; to solve these problems we need a comprehensive international law against unethical behavior of IT professionals and individuals, training of IT professionals in ethics, monitoring and investment & research on developing more secure systems.

Conclusion

The growing importance of technological gargets in modern era makes Ethics an important and essential when it comes to issues related to the Information Technology profession such as safety, security, privacy and everyday usage of computers which give rise to numerous ethical dilemmas.

The goal of ethics should not be only focused on the professionals; even aspiring individuals in universities should be enlightened about it. These will increase the ability of future professionals to recognize and solve ethical problems they might face. to accept different ethical perspectives. It will also develop that skill and habit in them of thinking rationally about ethical issues.

To sum up, ethics is very important in many ways, it’s a direction to individuals and a roadmap which is beneficial for IT professional and the organization.

References:

[1] Moor, J. H. (1985). “What is Computer Ethics?” Metaphilosophy, 16/4: 266–75.

      Laudon, K.C., Traver, C.G. and Laudon J.P. 1996. Information Technology and Society, pp.513.

[2] Morf, Duffy A., Schumacher, Michael G., and Vitell, Scott J.: “A Survey of Ethics Officers in         Large Organizations”, Journal of Business Ethics 20, 265-271: 1999.

[3] Ladd, J., 1991, The quest for a Code of Professional Ethics: an intellectual and moral confusion, Ethical Issues in Engineering, Ed. Deborah G. Johnson. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 130-136.

[4]Steven Mintz 2010, What is ethics?

Retrieved Oct 15, 2011 from http://www.ethicssage.com/2010/12/what-is-ethics.html

[5]James H. Moor, What is Computer Ethics?

Retrieved Oct 15, 2011 from: http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/spring06/papers/moor.html

[6] Moor, J., 2004, Towards a Theory of Privacy in the Information Age. Computer Ethics and Professional Responsibility. Edited by Terrell W Bynum and S Rogerson. Blackwell Publishing

[7] http://www.computer.org/education/cc2001/index.htm Computing Curricula 2001

[8] http://www.iit.edu/departments/csep/PublicWWW/codes/ Codes of Ethics Online

[9] http://www.asce.org/inside/codeofethics.cfm American Society of Civil Engineers Code of Ethics

[10] http://www.acm.org/constitution/code.html ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct

[11] www.ieee.org/about/whatis/code.html IEEE Code of Ethics

[12] Rikowski, R. (2006) Teaching Ethical Issues in Information Technology: how and when, Information for Social Change, summer, Issue 23: 
http://www.libr.org/isc/issues/ISC23/B9a%20Ruth%20Rikowski.pdf (Teaching Ethical Issues in I.T: how and when)

[13] Tengku Mohd T. Sembok. Ethics of Information Communication Technology (Ict) // Materials of    Regional Meeting on Ethics of Science and Technology: http:/ / www.emeraldinsight.com.