IT Ethics - Cyber-Crime - ICT Professionalism - Assessment Answer

IT Ethics Assignment

Assignment Task

1. Choose one of the media articles or case studies listed by the lecturer in your Interact 2 subject site.
2. Use the title of the article/case study provided in interact 2 as the title of your essay, so that the lecturer knows which article you are analysing.
3. Undertake further research about your chosen case, to assist you in analysing and discussing it in your essay.

You are required to complete the following:

Write an essay:

• Theword limitfor the essay is 1,000 words ± 10%. Headings, citations and references do not count towards the word limit, but quotations do.
• Analyse the article/case study from the perspective of at least two different classical ethical theories, one of which must be that of "Deontological". Present well reasoned arguments for your assessments and recommendations.
• Write an overall conclusion that justifies your recommendations made in your essay.
• Include aReferencelist at the end of your work, in the correct APA referencing style, corresponding to in-text citations.

In ICT, the main ethical issues are taken to be:

• ICT professionalism
• Privacy
• Security
• Cyber-crime
• Intellectual property
• Regulation on the internet
• Social inclusion
• Community and identity
• Pervasive and convergent computing.

1. identify an ICT-related ethical issue from a media article or case study;
2. apply classical ethical theory to the analysis of an ethically questionable situation to determine the rightness or wrongness of actions/decisions made therein;
3. derive logical and justifiable conclusions to resolve the ethical issue(s);and,
4. apply proper academic referencing.

Solution:

The question of which is more important between privacy and security is an infinite loop and forms the basis of many ethical dilemmas in information security. Lawmakers and authorities find themselves consistently on the opposite side of technology consumers. While authorities believe that security is paramount, users of technology prefer to have more privacy. Some stakeholders think of the opinion that society should not be made to choose between security and privacy. Both sides of the argument have valid bases. Therefore, this is undoubtedly a situation that is incredibly difficult to determine by simply evaluating arguments from both sides. The application of classical theories of ethics might bring important revelations to the topic. This essay assesses the ethical dilemma between privacy and security in the modern Information Age using the deontological and utilitarian approaches to ethics.

The issue of privacy in ICT

The question of privacy in information technology is more of an ethical issue than anything else. The legal perspective of the matter only introduces consequences of the problem; but even so, still to a small extent. Enforcing these consequences does little to limit the harm that information technology can cause to society. Making decisions regarding the direction that dilemmas created by information technology should take has to be based on ethics. According to Kantianism, ethics may provide sufficient more motivation than the law to society to use technology in a responsible manner (Pattaro & Roversi, 2016).

From a deontological perspective

This school of thought holds that an action is immoral if it does not conform to established rules in that field. It then follows that FBI’s attempt and reported hacking of the suspect’s device was an unethical act. User privacy is one of the promises that the manufacturer of the device made to consumers of their devices. Many users will argue that they chose the devices and services they use because of the privacy they were assured they would enjoy (Chin et al., 2012). Compromising this privacy regardless of the purpose would invalidate their purpose for acquiring the devices. It would therefore be unethical for either the FBI or Apple to attempt accessing the device without its owner’s consent.

Nonetheless, this view of the situation completely undermines the security of the same people who want privacy. Terrorists have been seen to be changing tactics and are today using lone suicide killers to execute their missions. Authorities have admitted that detecting and preventing such missions is extremely difficult without having access to people’s private communications (Giroux, 2016). For instance, the French Police say that they would have been able to detect the Nice terrorist attack by a truck driver that left eighty-four people dead had they access to communications by the attacker. From this event and the US murder that led to the FBI hacking the iPhone, one thing is clear – privacy is to blame. Ethics should not contradict itself; but in this instance, it seems to present conflicting results. If privacy is a good thing, it should not bring about bad consequences. This statement challenges the authority of the deontological approach to the ethical question of privacy. Perhaps, this is the biggest shortcoming of the deontological approach to addressing the ethical issue of privacy in information technology (Milkoreit, 2015).

From a utilitarian perspective (Teleological ethics)

This belief system holds that actions are immoral if their consequences are harmful. In the context of the information privacy, it would be unethical to access private information for use against a person. This interpretation is clearly ambiguous to automatically suit any situation. For instance, in the particular murder case that led the FBI to request forceful access to the suspect’s device, information found on the device would most likely be used against him (Liu, 2015). Some would argue that according to teleological ethics, this forceful access would be immoral because information obtained would be used to harm the suspect. However, such an opinion would be short-sighted. It does consider that information obtained forcefully from the suspect’s device would help serve justice to the slain victim and his family. In this scenario therefore, the dilemma would be in deciding between the suspect and the victim whose interests should be protected first. Assuming both interests are equal, then, the society would have to decide if will lose the chance to fight terrorism or it will fight to protect privacy. The logical choice here is very clear.

With increasing threats to security, privacy cannot stand in the way to ensuring the safety of people because when people are insecure they might not be able to enjoy the privacy. If the problem in this dilemma is decomposed into a matter of priorities, it becomes clear that, if a society must choose, it shall choose security first. Privacy is invaluable, particularly if it is viewed from the sense that is an element of human dignity. Therefore, from a utilitarian perspective, accessing private information for the good of the society is perfectly ethical. For if society is allowed to make choices that harm it, it can be seen to be self-destructive and society shall not be allowed to destroy itself. Ethics does not foresee itself as being a barrier to achieving common good (Akrivou & Sison, 2016).

Conclusion

It is difficult for people to see the need compromise privacy even for their own security. Most users of technology demand to have absolute privacy over their information without considering the impact of such a decision on their security. This view has created an ethical dilemma in emerging issues regarding information technologies. However, it can be concluded that it may not be unethical to compromise personal security for the good of the society. Deontological views suggest that privacy should be upheld regardless of its cost. However, utilitarian ethics have shown that it is important to weigh the costs and benefits of privacy of information before deciding if it can be compromised. From an evaluation of these two ethical beliefs, the utilitarian approach is more practicable in addressing information privacy.