NIT2201 | IT Profession and Ethics | Ethics of Whistleblowing in Play
Question:
Part 1
Doing Ethics Techniue This session we have restricted the cases to the following three (3). One of these will appear in the exam. We encourage you to prepare all three. i. In May 2013, Edward Snowden, a former employee of the National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, leaked sensitive national security-related material both to Washington Post and The Guardian. The leaked reports revealed that the NSA used at least three Internet surveillance programs, known internally as Tempora, PRISM, and XKeyscore. The reports also revealed that the NSA collected “metadata” from telephone communications that it had intercepted both in the United States and Europe. Many of Snowden’s critics have since claimed that the sheer scale of the material involved in this incident makes it the “most significant leak” in U.S. history. Whereas some of Snowden’s critics have described him as a dissident and a “traitor” (who has also caused grave damage to U.S. intelligence capabilities), at least some of his defenders view him as a “hero” and a “patriot” (in part, at least, because they believe that Snowden’s disclosure showed how the U.S. government had gone too far in its surveillance practices on its own citizens as well as on many of the leaders of closely allied nations).
- What’s going on?
- What are the facts?
- What are the issues (non-ethical)?
- Who is affected?
- What are the ethical issues and implications?
- What can be done about it?
- What are the options?
- Which option is best - and why?
- What’s going on?
- What are the facts?
- What are the issues (non-ethical)?
- Who is affected?
- What are the ethical issues and implications?
- What can be done about it?
- What are the options?
- Which option is best - and why?
iii. You are a computer programmer working for a small business that provides specialized financial services to local, mostly small businesses. You have been working for company X for about six months. Recently X has been occupied with reengineering the inventory system of a local hardware chain, ABC Hardware. The objective is to enable ABC to keep better track of their inventory, to be more responsive to changes in customer demand, and to adopt a “just in time” strategy to reduce inventory. Your supervisor calls you into his office. “Do you know of any existing software products to help ABC keep better track of its inventory?” You mention a particular product that you have worked with in another job and point out that ABC could use it without any modification. The only drawback, you point out, is that this software is somewhat expensive. Your supervisor leans back in his chair, puffs on his cigar and says, “That’s no problem. We have that software. Why don’t you just install it on ABC’s computers?” You diplomatically indicate that this would violate the licensing agreement X has with the developers of the software. “Do it anyway,” your supervisor says. “Nobody’s going to find out, and ABC is a very important client. We need to do all we can to keep them happy.”
- What’s going on?
- What are the facts?
- What are the issues (non-ethical)?
- Who is affected?
- What are the ethical issues and implications?
- What can be done about it?
- What are the options?
- Which option is best - and why?
Part 3: Essay
- Over the years a number of systems have been developed which record coded information across a range of factors about disabilities in ethnic communities. A new coding convention has been developed to rationalise the inconsistent coding conventions of these legacy systems. The new coding convention uses codes which had different meanings in the legacy systems. This means that time series analysis gives inconsistent results, particularly showing both under and over reporting of numbers of particular disability categories. This is significant when making policies for people based on the size of the communities. To fix this would take a lot of work and expense, and management has decreed that historical systems will not be fixed, but new systems will all adopt the new coding convention.
- Using currently available online tools and search facilities, ordinary users can easily acuire personal information about others. In fact, anyone who has Internet access can, via a search engine such as Google, find information about us that we ourselves might have had no idea is publicly available there. Does this use of online tools threaten the privacy of ordinary people
- Elsevier Press is a prestigious academic publisher, headuartered in the Netherlands. Noted for its uality publications in science and mathematics, Elsevier publishes approximately 2,000 journals and roughly 20,000 books. Some of its journals, such as The Lancet and Cell, are highly regarded. However, many scientists and mathematicians have been displeased with Elsevier’s pricing and policy practices, which they believe restrict access to important information. In 2011, distinguished mathematician Timothy Gowers (of the University of Cambridge) organized a formal boycott of Elsevier Press. As of August 2015, the boycott has collected close to 16,000 signatures from scholars around the world; they have signed a petition pledging not to publish in or review manuscripts for Elsevier. The boycott has come to be called “The Cost of Knowledge.”
Answer:
Part 1
1. Ethics of Whistleblowing are in play
2. Recording individual’s private information without their consent is unethical due to sensitivity of private information like financial details and health information. For that matter, Edward in this case has just acted as a whistle blower exposing the unethical act of the National Security Agency (Vandekerckhove, 2016)
3. NSA act of gathering individual private information without their consent is non-ethical issue because of the sensitivity of some of the private information the agency might come across like personal health information and financial details.
Edwards’s act of directly exposing the agency’s privacy on the public domain before consulting the management to chat the best way forward is also non-ethical. This is because the act was likely to cause harm to the security of the country by making terrorists change their tactics.
4. Mainly, the group which is highly affected by the whole scenario is the citizens whom personal data has been monitored without their consent. This is a direct violation to their privacy rights
5. The act of Edward (whistleblower) revealing what has been happening to the privacy of common citizens was ethical. This is because privacy rights have stipulated it clearly that privacy rights must be respected and if private information must be gathered, the owners must be notified.
6. Citizen’s whose information is being monitored by the organization should be notified that their activities online are under surveillance and the extent of their information which is under surveillance (Mittelstadt & Floridi, 2016).
7. The first option and which will protect citizen’s private rights is the total avoidance of gathering their private information
The second option will be collecting their private information but making them aware of what extend of their private information is being monitored.
8. Carrying out metadata gathering and monitoring with the consent of the citizens is the best option. This is because the information collected act as a way of fighting against insecurity issues (Kostyuk, Chen, Das, Liang & Hussain, 2017).
Part 2
1. Violation of privacy rights
2. Although the information revealed might have led to true revelation of
3. Stiviano act of recording Donald Sterling remarks on an electronic device and allowing it into the public domain was a non-ethical act. This is because she did it without the consent of the victim and that is interfering with his private life (Rubin, 2014).
4. Donald Sterling is the victim because his privacy rights have been compromised
5. Stiviano whistleblowing act to some extent can be considered ethical because it would enable the NBA team fight against racism
6. Stiviano was supposed to have notified Donald Sterling that she was recording his remarks and would release them to the public domain. That way, she could not have compromised his privacy rights.
7. Stiviano should have totally avoided recording Donald Sterling’s private remarks because that is a violation to his privacy rights or
V. Stiviano should have made Donald Sterling aware that she was recording his private remarks and would release them to the public domain. This would not have been a violation to his private rights because she could have already been aware.
8. Stiviano making Donald Sterling aware that she was recording his private remarks and would release them to the public domain
Part 3
1. Violation of Intellectual property rights
2. Intellectual property is like any other property and should not be grabbed without notifying the owner because that will be a violation to ownership rights.
3. The attempt by the supervisor to use software which has been developed by other people without consulting them or purchasing from them is a non-ethical issue because it will violate the developer’s intellectual rights (Moore, 2017).
4. The developers of the Inventory software are the ones being affected because their intellectual property right in the software is in danger of being violated
5. The employee’s reluctance on installing or giving out the inventory system to the company is a sign of his or her respect to intellectual property rights of the software owners
6. The company should first consult the developers if it wishes to use their software because it’s their intellectual property and must not be taken or used without them being consulted (Bradner, & Contreras, 2017)
7. The company should totally not use this software because it’s an intellectual property of the developers
The company should first consult the owners of this software if it wishes to use it in the company.
8. Consulting the software owners to be given usage rights either by purchasing it or paying to have their own customized software
Part 3: Essay
With an eye on the ACS code of professional conduct values and all the relevant clauses in regard to professional conduct, the first consideration in this case scenario would be the public interest. Under this bracket, I will first identify all the potentially groups to be impacted by my practices and consider their interests explicitly (Gallagher & Haworth, 2015). This will be achieved by taking into consideration the fact that my profession transverses many other professions and impacts other social organizations and systems. For that matter, I will endeavor to preserve security, utility and integrity of ICT. The second consideration will be the quality of life. in this approach, I will endeavor to recognize the role of ICT in enhancing the quality of life especially the disadvantaged people through protection and promotion of health and safety of the affected group. I will also attempt to promote personal satisfaction, control and competence of the affected group. Competence will be my third consideration in this process and which will entail providing products and services which are in line with both financial and operational needs of my stakeholders. I will also advise my stakeholders of a product or service that may not be best for their interests. Lastly, I will ensure professionalism by cooperating to advance ICT through communication with other professionals.
In accordance to privacy rights, any information gathered or collected from another person without his or her consent is a violation to privacy. For that matter, online tools will be directly threatening the privacy of ordinary people who are not aware whether any information regarding them is being collected (Gallagher & Haworth, 2015). However, this can be changed if the ordinary people were to be notified that their online behaviors are under surveillance and the extent of that surveillance also revealed because in that way they would be aware and can put measures that will reduce the impacts of the information collected about the private lives.
Elsevier Press in this scenario is an example of an organization suffering because of its attempts to act in an ethical manner. Like many other organizations in the past, acting in ethical ways has always come with its cost. When the case is monitored closely, it comes out clearly that scientists are after satisfying their own interests in accessing research materials at the expense of the owners of those study resources which is unethical (Fang Lerner & Wu, 2017). It will be a violation to the intellectual property rights of the owners of those study materials if Elsevier Press gives the scientists a free access to them because it’s their property and any person who wishes to use it freely should consult them first. For that matter, Elsevier Press can be seen as an epitome of change championing for ethical practices in the society.
References
Bradner, S., & Contreras, J. (2017). Intellectual Property Rights in IETF Technology (No. RFC 8179).
Fang, L. H., Lerner, J., & Wu, C. (2017). Intellectual property rights protection, ownership, and innovation: Evidence from China. The Review of Financial Studies, 30(7), 2446-2477.
Gallagher, T., & Haworth, R. (2015). Professional and ethical issues. Handbook of Professional and Ethical Practice for Psychologists, Counsellors and Psychotherapists, 108.
Kostyuk, N., Chen, W., Das, V., Liang, F., & Hussain, M. M. (2017). High-Tech Governance Through Big Data Surveillance: Tracing the Global Deployment of Mass Surveillance Infrastructures, 1995 to Present.
Moore, A. (2017). Intellectual property and information control: philosophic foundations and contemporary issues. Routledge.
Mittelstadt, B. D., & Floridi, L. (2016). The ethics of big data: current and foreseeable issues in biomedical contexts. Science and Engineering Ethics, 22(2), 303-341.
Rubin, R. (2014). Smart Dust: Just A Speck Goes A Long Way in the Erosion of Fundamental Privacy Rights. J. High Tech. L., 15, 329.
Vandekerckhove, W. (2016). Whistleblowing and organizational social responsibility: A global assessment. Routledge.
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