Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues in The Digital Firm

Chapter 4
Social, Legal, and

Ethical Issues in the
Digital Firm
Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.1

Management Information Systems
Chapter 4
Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues in the Digital Firm
OBJECTIVES
• Analyze the ethical, social, and political issues that are raised by
information systems
• Identify the main moral dimensions of an information society and
specific principles for conduct that can be used to guide ethical
decisions
• Evaluate the impact of contemporary information systems and the
Internet on the protection of individual privacy and intellectual
property
• Assess how information systems have affected everyday life
• Identify the principal management challenges posed by the ethical and
social impact of information systems and propose management
solutions

Chapter 4
UNDERSTANDING ETHICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES
RELATED TO SYSTEMS
• In the past, so-called “white collar” crimes were

treated with a slap on the wrist and fines to restore
any damage done
• Industrial societies have become much less tolerant
of financial, accounting, and computer crimes
• Managers and employees must make judgments
about what constitutes legal and ethical conduct

Chapter 4
RELATED TO SYSTEMS
Ethics:
• Principles of right and wrong
• Assumes individuals are acting as free moral
agents to make choices to guide their behavior
• Have been given new urgency by the use of the
Internet, electronic commerce, and digital
technologies

Chapter 4
RELATED TO SYSTEMS
The relationship between ethical, social,

and political issues in an information society

Chapter 4
RELATED TO SYSTEMS
Five moral dimensions of the information age

• Information rights and obligations
• Property rights and obligations
• Accountability and control
• System quality
• Quality of life

Chapter 4
RELATED TO SYSTEMS
Key technology trends that raise ethical issues

• Computing power doubles every 18 months
– More organizations depend on computer systems for critical
operations
• Rapidly declining data storage costs
– Organizations can easily maintain detailed databases on individuals
• Data analysis advances
– Companies can analyze vast quantities of data gathered on
individuals to develop detailed profiles of individual behaviour
• Networking advances and the Internet
– Easier to copy data from one location to another and to access
personal data from remote locations

Chapter 4
ETHICS IN AN INFORMATION SOCIETY
Some Real-World IT Ethical Dilemmas

• Using systems to increase efficiency,
causing layoffs and personal hardships
• Monitoring employee use of the Internet at
work to increase productivity, decreasing
employee privacy


Chapter 4
THE MORAL DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Information Rights: Privacy and Freedom in the

Internet Age
• Privacy: Claim of individuals to be left alone, free from
surveillance or interference from other individuals,
organizations, or the state.
• Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents
Act (PIPEDA) establishes principles for collection, use,
and disclosure of personal information
• Provinces have parallel legislation
• Only Quebec has legislation governing private sector

Chapter 4
How cookies identify Web visitors

Chapter 4
Internet Challenges to Privacy (continued):
Web bugs:
• Tiny graphic files embedded in e-mail messages and Web

pages
• Designed to monitor online Internet user behaviour
• When a user views the e-mail or the page, a message is
sent to a without the knowledge of the user
• In the case of e-mail, the user’s e-mail address is known to
the server

Chapter 4
Internet Challenges to Privacy (continued):
Spyware:
• Software downloaded onto a user’s computer – usually

without the user’s knowledge – that tracks Web behaviour
and reports that behaviour to a third-party server
• Spyware is also used to call for ads from third-party
servers, or to divert customers from one site to a preferred
site

Chapter 4
Two Models of Providing Web Privacy: Opt-out

versus opt-in model of informed consent
• An opt-out model of informed consent permits
the collection of personal information until the
consumer specifically requests that the data
not be collected. The default is to assume
consent is given.

Chapter 4
Two Models of Providing Web Privacy: Opt-out

versus opt-in model of informed consent
• An opt-in model of informed consent prohibits
an organization from collecting any personal
information unless the users specifically
requests to allow such use by clicking a box.
The default is to assume consent is not given

Chapter 4
Ethical Issues
• Under what conditions should the privacy of others be
invaded?
• What legitimates intruding into others’ lives through
unobtrusive surveillance, through market research, or by
whatever means?
• Do we have to inform people that we are eavesdropping?
• Do we have to inform people that we are using credit
history information for employment screening purposes?

Chapter 4
Social Issues
• In what areas of life should we as a society encourage
people to think they are in private territory as opposed to
public territory?
• Should expectations of privacy be extended to criminal
conspirators?

Chapter 4
Political Issues
• Should we permit the RCMP or CSIS to monitor email at
will to apprehend suspected criminals and terrorists?
• To what extent should e-commerce sites and other
businesses be allowed to maintain personal data about
individuals?

Chapter 4
Property Rights: Intellectual Property

Intellectual property: Intangible property of any kind
created by individuals or corporations
Three main ways that intellectual property is protected:

1. Trade secret
2. Copyright
3. Patents

Chapter 4
Challenges to Intellectual Property Rights

• Perfect digital copies cost almost nothing
• Sharing of digital content over the Internet costs
almost nothing
• Sites, software, and services for file trading are not
easily regulated.
• The construction of web pages poses problems: a
web page may present data from many sources, and
incorporate framing

Chapter 4
Who owns the pieces? Anatomy of a Web page

Chapter 4
Accountability, Liability, and Control

• Computer-related liability problems
• Bank of America system failure caused cheques
to bounce, etc.
• Sprint Canada’s system failure caused disruption
in trading on Vancouver Venture Exchange
• Raise issues of liability legislation for software
and systems

Chapter 4
System Quality: Data Quality and System

Errors
• No software program is perfect, errors will be made,
even if the errors have a low probability of occurring
• Software manufacturers knowingly ship “buggy”
products
• At what point should software “be shipped?” What
kind of disclaimer statements might be appropriate?

Chapter 4
Quality of Life: Equity, Access, and Boundaries

• Balancing Power: Centre 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 and be wiped-out,
along with your job.

Chapter 4

• Maintaining Boundaries: Family, Work, and Leisure
• “Do anything anywhere” environment blurs the boundaries
between work, vacation, and family time
• 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

Chapter 4

Employment Trickle-down Technology and Reengineering:
• 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

Chapter 4

Equity and access: Increasing Racial and Social Class Divisions
– Digital divides exist in ethnic, social, and wealth groups
Health Risks:
RSI: Repetitive Stress Injury
– Muscle groups are forced through repetitive actions with high-impact loads or
thousands of repetitions with low-impact loads
CVS: Computer Vision Syndrome
– Eyestrain related to computer display use
Technostress
– Stress induced by computer use

Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues in The Digital Firm

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues in The Digital Firm

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues in The Digital Firm

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Chapter 4

Social, Legal, and

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.1

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.2

• In the past, so-called “white collar” crimes were

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.3

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.4

The relationship between ethical, social,

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.5

Five moral dimensions of the information age

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.6

Key technology trends that raise ethical issues

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.7

Some Real-World IT Ethical Dilemmas

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.8

THE MORAL DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Information Rights: Privacy and Freedom in the

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.9

THE MORAL DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

How cookies identify Web visitors

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.10

THE MORAL DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Internet Challenges to Privacy (continued):

• Tiny graphic files embedded in e-mail messages and Web

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.11

THE MORAL DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Internet Challenges to Privacy (continued):

• Software downloaded onto a user’s computer – usually

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.12

THE MORAL DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Two Models of Providing Web Privacy: Opt-out

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.13

THE MORAL DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Two Models of Providing Web Privacy: Opt-out

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.14

THE MORAL DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.15

THE MORAL DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.16

THE MORAL DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.17

THE MORAL DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Property Rights: Intellectual Property

Three main ways that intellectual property is protected:

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.18

THE MORAL DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Challenges to Intellectual Property Rights

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.19

THE MORAL DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Who owns the pieces? Anatomy of a Web page

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.20

THE MORAL DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Accountability, Liability, and Control

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.21

THE MORAL DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

System Quality: Data Quality and System

Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education Canada 4.22

THE MORAL DIMENSIONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Quality of Life: Equity, Access, and Boundaries