Management Information Systems B(CS)-Fall 2009 Instructor: Amina Tariq Management Information Systems B(CS)-Fall 2009 Instructor: Amina Tariq Chapter 4:

Management Information SystemsManagement Information Systems

B(CS)-Fall 2009B(CS)-Fall 2009

Instructor: Amina TariqInstructor: Amina Tariq

Chapter 4: Ethical & Social Issues

in Digital Firm

04/20/23 NUCES-Islamabad 2

• What ethical, social, and political issues are raised by information systems?

• Are there specific principles for conduct that can be used to guide decisions about ethical dilemmas?

• Why does contemporary information systems technology pose challenges to the protection of individual privacy and intellectual property?

Today We Explore:Today We Explore:


• How have information systems affected everyday life?

• How can organizations develop corporate policies for ethical conduct?

Today We Explore:Today We Explore:


District of Columbia: Location District of Columbia: Location Tracking SystemTracking System

Business ProblemOpportunities from new

technology Needed for greater security

TechnologyGPRS Tracking

RFID Tracking DevicesLocation tracking database

OrganizationRedesign Business Processes and products according to the

Location monitoring

ManagementDesign Monitoring Policy

IS solution

Location Tracking System

Business Solution

Invade privacy?Increase sales

Increase security

Technology..double edged sword

04/20/23 Slides By: Sir Adil Kazi; Modified: Amina Tariq

Information System & Technology a two-edge weapon

Opportunity & Threat go togetherWhile it is a source of many benefits whereas it carry high risks; create new opportunities for breaking the law or exploiting sensitive information to get benefits away from others.

Creating ethical dilemma…Warning: “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should!”

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Understanding Ethical and Social Issues Related to Systems

• The SECURITY and ETHICAL ISSUES raised by the Information Age & INTERNET are the most explosive to face our society in decades.

• SOCIALLY RESPONSIVE & ACCEPTABLES policies & practices need time to evolve.

•It remains a big challenge more for Information System dependent societies that less developed ones.

Each American is listed in about 60 government and 80 private sector databases.

On a typical day, each person’s name is passed between computers 10 times.

A lot of personal information about us has always been available, just not as easily and as readily as today.

Massive databases maintained by commercial companies and governments at all levels now allow profiling like that above to be accomplished easier and faster than ever before.

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The U.S & EU governments are just beginning to pass laws against cyber-crimes but it’s difficult to stay one step ahead of the cyber-criminals


A model for thinking about ethical, social, & political issues

• Freedom of speech,• Personal responsibility,• Corporate responsibility• Right of access to information

As individual actors are confronted with new situations often not covered by the old rules:

Social institutions cannot respond overnight to these ripples...may take years to develop etiquette, expectations, social responsibility, politically correct attitudes or approved rules!

Political institutions also require time before developing new laws and often require the demonstration of real harm before they act.

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Understanding Ethical and Social Issues Related to Systems

ETHICS

• Principles of right and wrong

• Used by individuals acting as free moral agents to make choices to guide their behavior


RelationshipRelationship

Ethical, Social, and Political Issues Ethical, Social, and Political Issues in an Information Societyin an Information Society

Figure 4-1

Introduction of Information Systems Technology has a ripple effect, raising new ethical, social, and political issues that must be dealt with on the individual, social, and political institutional levels.

These issues have five moral dimensions:

• Information rights and obligations,

• Property rights and obligations,

• System quality,

• Quality of life, and

• Accountability and control.

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Information rights & obligations:a) What information rights do individuals & organisations possess w.r.t. themselves?b) What can they protect?c) What obligations do individuals & organisations have concerning this information?

Property rights and obligations:How will traditional intellectual property rights be protected in a digital society, in which tracing & accounting for ownership are difficult & ignoring such property rights is so easy?

System quality:What standards of data & system quality should we demand to protect individual rights & the safety of society

Quality of life:a) What values should be preserved in a information & knowledge based society?b) Which institution should we protect from violation?c) Which cultural values & practices are supported by the new information

technology?

Accountability & Control:Who can & will be held accountable & liable for the harm done to individual & collective information & property rights?

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RelationshipRelationship

Ethical, Social, and Political Issues Ethical, Social, and Political Issues in an Information Societyin an Information Society


DoubleClick: a major Internet advertising broker, announced in early 2000 that it would use data gathered from web sites in conjunction with data collected from sources other than the Internet to identify people by name — a process known as profiling. It intended to sell the data to marketers who would be able to target advertising campaigns more efficiently. Public outcry about privacy issues forced DoubleClick to cancel its plans.

ChoicePoint: is one of the largest data brokers with more than 5,000 employees, gathers data from police, criminal, & motor vehicle records: credit & employment histories, current & previous addresses; professional licenses, & insurance claims – assembling & maintaining e-dossiors on almost every adult in US. Choicepoint sells these personal information to business & government agencies

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Key Technology Trends that raise ethical issues


Profiling is possible through the technique called data mining. Adding to that the capabilities of NonObvious Relationship Awareness (NORA) data analysis technology, as being shown in, a complete stranger might know just as much about you as you do. It can and has been done. So you should be concerned and you should care.

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Key Technology Trends that raise ethical issues


• Responsibility, Accountability,

Liability

• Ethical analysis

• Candidate ethical principles

• Professional codes of conduct

• Some real-world ethical

dilemmas

Ethics in an Information Society

BASIC CONCEPTS:

WHAT is the correct moral choice? WHAT are the main features of ethical choices?

Ethical choices are decisions made by individuals who are responsible for the consequences of their chosen courses of action!

Responsibility: Accepting potential costs, duties, and obligations for your decisions.Accountability: Determining who should take responsibility for decisions and actions.Liability: Legally placing responsibility with a person or group.

Due Process: ensuring the laws are applied fairly and correctly.

These basic concepts form the underpinning of an Ethical Analysis of Info Systems & those who manage them. Identify and describe clearly the facts.

Separate fact from fiction.

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

Remember, no matter how thin you slice it, there’s always two sides.Identify the stakeholders.

Determine who’s really involved.Identify the options that you can reasonably take

Compromise; it doesn’t always have to be an “either-or” outcome.Identify the potential consequences of your options.

Anticipate the outcome; it will help you devise better solutions.

Candidate Ethical Principals are deeply rooted in cultures around the world in their everyday business. But they are equally valid even in cyberspace!Golden rule — do unto others as you would have them do unto you.Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative — if an action is not right for everyone to take, it is not right for anyone.Descartes’ rule of change — if an action cannot be taken repeatedly, it is not right to take at all.Utilitarian Principle — take the action that achieves the higher or greater value.Risk Aversion Principle — take the action that produces the least harm or the least potential cost.Ethical “no free lunch” Rule — assume that virtually all tangible and intangible objects are owned by someone else unless there is a specific declaration otherwise.

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• Promises by professions to regulate Promises by professions to regulate themselves in the general interest of themselves in the general interest of societysociety

• Promulgated by associations such as the Promulgated by associations such as the American Medical Association (AMA) and American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Bar Association (ABA)the American Bar Association (ABA)

Professional Codes of Conduct

Ethics in an Information Society

Real world Dilemmas Real world Dilemmas Information system being used by Information system being used by

organizations to:organizations to:• Minimize drains on productivity by Minimize drains on productivity by

reducing jobsreducing jobs• Prevent wastage of resources for non-Prevent wastage of resources for non-

business activities by employee business activities by employee monitoringmonitoring


Information rights: Privacy and freedom in the Internet Age

Privacy is the claim of individuals to be left alone, free from surveillance or interference

from other individuals or organisations, including the state

Fair Information Practices (FIP) – (Euro-Americana privacy law regime). is a set of

principles governing the collection and use of information about individuals. FIP principles

are based on the notion of a mutuality of interest between the record holder and the

individual.

• The European directive on data protection – Companies to inform and disclose people when they collect info. about them & how it ‘d be stored & used

The customer’s Informed Consent is a pre-requisite to legally use data about them for business purposes.

• Internet challenges to privacy – Many websites make their privacy policies obvious and others don’t..

The Moral Dimensions of Information Systems

How do these organizations gather the information?

By using cookies; part of every browser program - a tiny file deposited on the hard disk when an individual visits certain site. It identifies the user & track his visits to the website.

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How How CookiesCookies identify web visitors identify web visitors

Spyware detection software - helps you secure your identity theft attempts

Opt-in & Opt-out Models – Opt out permits collection of personal information until the user revokes for so and Opt in prohibits from collection of personal information unless the user specifically approves information collection & its use. (Europeans practice opt-in whereas Americans practice opt-out)

15Slides By: Sir Adil Kazi; Modified: Amina Tariq


04/20/23

Technical solutionsSome tools that can help you block someone from tracing your Internet activities.

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) – a freeware encryption software programs for e-mail. Its limitations are that both the SENDER and RECIPIENT must have the program installed in order for it to work

Platform for Privacy Practices (P3P) - embedded in Internet Explorer version 6.0 that allows the user to determine what sites can collect information behind the scenes through the user’s cookie files.

Because the P3P standards are “machine-readable” the user doesn’t have to search each Web site for its privacy policy. The user can let the computers do the comparison and automatically block any site not conforming to the user’s wishes.



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Property rights: Intellectual propertyThe laws and policies in place to settle disputes about trade secrets, copyrights, and patents have to be rewritten to apply to the Internet. Intellectual property is a result of someone’s effort at creating a product of value based on their experiences, knowledge, and education. We may say - intellectual property is brain power.

Patents

A legal document that grants the owner an exclusive monopoly on the ideas behind an invention for 17 years; designed to ensure that inventors of new machines or methods are rewarded for their labor while making widespread use of their inventions.

Trade secretsAny intellectual work or product used for a business purpose that can be classified as belonging to that business, provided it is not based on information in the public domain.

Copyright © A statutory grant that protects creators of intellectual property against copying by others for any purpose for a minimum of 70 years

Challenges to intellectual property rights (no return of your product)Everything on the Web is considered to be protected under copyright and intellectual property laws unless the contents specifically stated to be public domain. Digital Millennium Copyright© Act (DMCA) 1998 makes it a federal offense to violate Copyright© laws on the Internet, punishable with a fine up to $250,000




Accountability, liability, and controlOne tenet of the Communications Decency Act and the Child Online Protection Act is that the Internet

Service Providers (ISP) should somehow be liable for content placed on the Internet through their

users.

“If you receive an obscene phone call, is the telephone company responsible and liable for the problem?

“If you receive a threatening letter in the mail, is the Post Office department responsible for reading every piece

of mail on the chance that there might be a problem in one of the letters?”

All of the following factors require significant interrelated checks & balances, that the usage facilities &

benefits the consumer in socially productive & responsible manner:

Technology – Facility - Security – Privacy – Responsibility – Accountability – Liability - Control

Computer-related liability problems

As our dependence on the use of computer systems grows, legal courts have no choice but to develop

laws designed to deal with computer-related liability problems.

Traditionally, software producers have not been held physically or economically liable for any harm that

comes about through the use of their software products. 18



System quality: Data quality and system errors

If your record has been presented somewhere with wrong information - who’s fault is it?

While driving a fully loaded (e-transmission) car on a highway the computer chip controlling brake system fails resulting in a rather nasty crash. Who’s at fault? <You>, <the car company>, or <the company that made the computer chip>?

A virus carried by an e-mail or a download product, affecting your system – can fix a responsibility on <ISP>, <a public domain portals>, <the software manufacturer> or <the company that licenses the software>?

Three principal sources of poor system performance are described as:

1. Software bugs and errors2. Hardware or telecommunication facility failures caused by natural or other causes3. Poor input data quality

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Quality of life: Equity, access, and boundaries:

• Losing the face-to-face contact with other human beings

• Under-developed normal social skills in children who spend most of their time on computers

• Online love affairs & obnoxious or false identity relationship crimes

• Exposures and theft of digital images – confidential or personal - to hacker (groups & individuals)

Balancing power: Center versus periphery (out-streams)

• Centralized mainframe computers centralized power at corporate headquarters levels.

• Shift toward highly decentralized computing, decentralized of decision making to respective (Strategic –

Tactical & Operational) organizational level making business organizations a flatten structure

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Rapidity of change: Reduced response time to competition

• Created much more efficient national and international markets.• Competitive positioning: are we at risk of developing a “just-in-time society” with “just-in-time jobs” and “just-in-time” workplaces, families, and vacations?

Maintaining boundaries: Family, work, and leisure

• One quality-of-life issue that affects more and more people personally is the ability to work from home.

• Life becomes too mechanized & swiveling man into family – workplace & leisure paradox adversely effecting social patterns of life.

Dependence and vulnerability

Societies becoming incredibility dependent on information systems - putting ourselves in a highly vulnerable position if these systems fail.

Information systems – becoming a commonplace requirement as having a television in our homes. (Beware - no regulatory or standard-setting forces in place to regulate IS).

Computer Crime & Abuse

Computer Crime - Commission of an illegal act thru the use of computer or against the computer system.

Computer Abuse – Commission of acts involving a computer that may not be illegal but considered unethical. (e.g. SPAM)

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The Spamming ProblemThe Spamming Problem

Spam – a junk email sent by an organization or individual to a mass audience of Internet users who have expressed no interest in the product or service being marketed

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Employment: Trickle-down technology and reengineering job loss

• Job losses and career changes caused by technology - you’ll be a part of the evolution of technology for the rest of your life. • Be competitive in the job market by continual update of your technology skills and knowledge.

Equity and access: Increasing racial and social class cleavages

Unequal access to technology has triggered a Digital Divide amongst individuals, organisations, societies & nations

Health risks: RSI, CVS, and Techno-stressAs managers, you should be acutely aware of the health issues caused by computer usage -

• Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI) - also called cumulative trauma disorder (CTD), occupational overuse syndrome, or work related upper limb disorder (WRULD), is any of a loose group of conditions resulting from overuse of a tool, such as a computer keyboard or musical instrument or other activity that requires repeated movements.

• Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS) is a temporary condition resulting from focusing the eyes on a computer display for protracted, uninterrupted periods of time that strain eyesight.

• Technostress is the psychological resistance of change that accompanies newly introduced machines to work, home & leisure situations

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Suggested ReadingsSuggested Readings

• Laudon & Laudon: Chapter 4• Reading Article: Ethics &IS

Documents

Management Information Systems B(CS)-Fall 2009 Instructor: Amina Tariq Management Information Systems B(CS)-Fall 2009 Instructor: Amina Tariq Chapter 4: