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  Ch 4 - Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems

1. Opening Case - Is Your Student Loan Data on Loan?       (p121)
   1. Problem: high cost student loans due to poor access to student data by lenders
   2. Solution: National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS).
   3. Illustrates how info technology can be a double-edged sword by providing lower loan costs thru competition while increasing the potential for privacy invasion by lenders (inappropriately) mining NSLDS to market other products.
       
2. Understanding Ethical and Social Issues Related to Systems      (p123)
   1. Information systems raise new ethical questions because they create opportunities for intense social change.
   2. Model for ethical, social, and political issues.  Fig 4-1, p125.  Used for Ethical Analysis presented in Section IV.A below.
      1. The Model has Five Moral Dimensions (explained in Section IV. below)
         1. Information rights
         2. Property rights
         3. Accountability, liability, and control
         4. System quality
         5. Quality of life
   3. Key technology trends that raise ethical issues:
      1. Computing power doubles every 18 months (Ch5 p170)
      2. Data storage doubles every 15 months (p172)
      3. Data analysis power is increasing rapidly
         1. Profiling - combining data from multiple sources and creating detailed dossiers on individuals
         2. ChoicePoint - gathers data from police, motor vehicle, credit, insurance, and other sources to create online dossiers on most U.S. adults.  See www.choicepoint.com and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChoicePoint.
         3. Nonobvious Relationship Awareness (NORA) - realtime capability
      4. Networking power is increasing rapidly - change traditional relationships between family, work, and leisure.
          
3. Moral Dimensions of Information Systems     (p131)
   1. Information Rights
      1. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Fair Information Practice (FIP) Principles - Table 4-4
         1. Notice - websites must disclose their info collecting practices
         2. Choice - individual can choose opt-out or opt-in
         3. Access - individual can review and contest collected data
         4. Security - data collector must secure data from unauthorized use
         5. Enforcement - must have mechanism to enforce FIP principles.
      2. Internet Challenges to Privacy     (p134)
         1. Cookies - a small files deposited on a computer hard drive when an individual visits certain websites.
            Used to track past visits to a website.
         2. Spyware - computer software that collects personal information about users without their knowledge.
            Personal information is secretly recorded, including logging keystrokes, recording Internet web browsing history, and scanning documents on the computer's hard disk.
            Purposes range from criminal (theft of passwords and financial details) to annoying (recording Internet search history for targeted advertising, while consuming computer resources).
            Summarized from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware.
      3. Technical Solution - P3P - Platform for Privacy Preferences Project.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_for_Privacy_Preferences       (p137)
         1. Enables automatic communication of privacy policies between a website and its visitors.
         2. Users can select desired level of privacy.
         3. PrivacyFinder (http://www.privacyfinder.org/) can be used to display privacy reports.  For example, click http://www.privacyfinder.org/ and search "privacy preferences" with Yahoo and medium level.
         4. To see a privacy report with MS Internet Explorer 8, click Safety, Webpage Privacy Policy.  For a sample report, click http://www.w3.org/P3P/ or www.yahoo.com.
             
   2. Property Rights   (p138)
      1. Trade Secret - any intellectual work product owned by a business and used for a business purpose, can be classified as a trade secret if it is not based on info in the public domain, and the business takes appropriate steps to prevent the secret from falling into the public domain.
         1. Example: Coca Cola has no patent for its formula.  Coca Cola uses a trade secret to protect its formula for many more years than a patent.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_secret
      2. Copyright - a statutory grant that protects creators of intellectual property from having their work copied by others for a minimum of 70 years.
         1. Computer Software Copyright Act (1980) - purchaser given license to use software while creator retains legal title.
         2. In early 1990s, Apple sued Microsoft for copyright infringement of the expression of Apple's Macintosh overlapping windows interface.  Apple lost because when ideas and their expression merge, the expression cannot be copyrighted.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microsoft_Corp.
      3. Patent - a statutory grant that offers the owner an exclusive monopoly on the ideas behind an invention for 20 years.
         1. A patent requires full disclosure to the public (patent office), whereas a trade secret has no disclosure.
             
   3. Accountability, Liability, and Control     (p140)
      1. Responsibility - a person or social institution has responsibility for a given action if they accept the potential costs, duties, and obligations for that action.   (p129)
      2. Accountability - an info system or social institution has accountability for a given action if there are mechanisms in place to determine who took that action.   (p129)
      3. Liability - a person or social institution has liability for a given action if there are laws in place that permit other individuals to recover damages as a result of that action.   (p129)
      4. Information systems should be designed for appropriate accountability.
          
   4. System Quality   (p141)
      1. Three sources of poor info system performance are:
         1. software bugs,
         2. hardware failures, and
         3. errors in input data.
      2. Information systems should be designed and managed so that:
         1. software bugs are identified and remediated,
         2. hardware has appropriate backup procedures, and
         3. input data has extensive edit checking.  See Ch6 VII. Ensuring Data Quality.
             
   5. Quality of Life   (p142)
      1. Rapidity of Change: Reduced Response Time to Competition
         Will the now-more-efficient global marketplace reduce New York City's prominence in financial services?
      2. Boundaries: Family, Work, and Leisure - traditional boundaries between family, and work are lessened.
         Will children seeing their parents work have a more realistic attitude toward work?
      3. Computer Crime - identity theft, spam
      4. Equity and Access   (p147)
         Should digital info services (Internet) be made available to everyone, just as basic telephone service is now?
      5. Health Risks - carpal tunnel syndrome.
          
4. Ethics in an Information Society     (p128)
   1. Ethical Analysis
      1. Identify and describe clearly all the facts, using the Moral Dimensions of Info Systems described in Section III. above as a guide.
      2. Define the conflict and identify the higher-order values involved.
      3. Identify stakeholders (participants who have an interest in the outcome).
      4. Identify the options that you can reasonably take.
      5. Identify the potential consequences of your options.
      6. Note by PJL: select the best option.
         Factor Rating Method with Ben Franklin's Prudential Algebra may be a helpful.  See www.patlyons.com/m3325/chapters/h908.htm and  www.patlyons.com/research/PrudentialAlgebra.htm.
          
   2. Consider the following case: a person is applying for a job and the employer wishes to obtain a background check from ChoicePoint (see p127 and II.C.3.b above).  Should ChoicePoint be required to show the background check to the potential employee and obtain the employee's approval before sending it to the employer?
      Use the procedure presented in Section IV.A above to conduct an ethical analysis.
      1. Identify and describe clearly the facts concerning a CheckPoint background check.
          
      2. Define the conflict and identify the higher-order values involved.
          
      3. Identify stakeholders for this case.
          
      4. Identify the options for this case.
          
      5. Identify the potential consequences of the options.
          

                      (This page was last edited on January 09, 2010 .)