Management Information Systems:
Managing the Digital Firm
Ethical and Social Issues in
Information Systems
Learning Objectives
4.1 What ethical, social, and political issues are raised by
information systems?
4.2 What specific principles for conduct can be used to guide
ethical decisions?
4.3 Why do contemporary information systems technology and the
Internet pose challenges to the protection of individual privacy
and intellectual property?
4.4 How have information systems affected laws for establishing
accountability, liability, and the quality of everyday life?
4.5 How will MI S help my career?
What Ethical, Social, and Political
Issues are Raised by Information
Systems? (1 of 2)
• Ethics
– Principles of right and wrong that individuals, acting as free moral
agents, use to make choices to guide their behaviors
What Ethical, Social, and Political
Issues are Raised by Information
Systems? (2 of 2)
• Information systems raise new ethical questions because
they create opportunities for:
– Intense social change, threatening existing distributions
of power, money, rights, and obligations
• New opportunities for crime
• New kinds of crimes
Five Moral Dimensions of the
Information Age
• Information rights and obligations
• Property rights and obligations
• Accountability and control
• System quality
• Quality of life
Key Technology Trends That Raise
Ethical Issues
• Computing power doubles every 18 months
• Data storage costs rapidly decline
• Data analysis advances
• Networking advances
• Mobile device growth impact
Advances in Data Analysis
Techniques
• Profiling
– Combining data from multiple sources to create
dossiers of detailed information on individuals
• Nonobvious relationship awareness (NO RA)
– Combining data from multiple sources to find obscure
hidden connections that might help identify criminals or
terrorists
Figure 4.2 Nonobvious Relationship
Awareness (NOR A)
Basic Concepts: Responsibility,
Accountability, and Liability
• Responsibility
– Accepting the potential costs, duties, and obligations for decisions
• Accountability
– Mechanisms for identifying responsible parties
• Liability
– Permits individuals (and firms) to recover damages done to them
• Due process
– Laws are well-known and understood, with an ability to appeal to
higher authorities
Ethical Analysis
• Five-step process for ethical analysis
1. Identify and clearly describe the facts
2. Define the conflict or dilemma and identify the higher-
order values involved
3. Identify the stakeholders
4. Identify the options that you can reasonably take
5. Identify the potential consequences of your options
Candidate Ethical Principles (1 of 2)
• 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
• Slippery Slope Rule
– If an action cannot be taken repeatedly, it is not right to
take at all
Candidate Ethical Principles (2 of 2)
• Utilitarian Principle
– Take the action that achieves the higher or greater value
• Risk Aversion Principle
– Take the action that produces the least harm or potential
cost
• Ethical “No Free Lunch” Rule
– Assume that virtually all tangible and intangible objects are
owned by someone unless there is a specific declaration
otherwise
Professional Codes of Conduct
• Promulgated by associations of professionals
– Ghana Medical Association (G M A)
– Ghana Bar Association (GB A)
– Association for Computing Machinery (AC M)
• Promises by professions to regulate themselves in the
general interest of society
Real-World Ethical Dilemmas
• One set of interests pitted against another
• Examples
– Monitoring employees: Right of company to maximize
productivity of workers versus workers’ desire to use
Internet for short personal tasks
– Facebook provides useful services for users but
monitors user behavior and sells information to
advertisers and app developers
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 state;
claim to be able to control information about yourself
• Ghana’s Privacy laws govern by the Data Protection Act 2012
(Act 483)
Internet Challenges to Privacy
• Cookies
– Identify browser and track visits to site
• Web beacons (web bugs)
– Tiny graphics embedded in e-mails and web pages
– Monitor who is reading email message or visiting site
• Spyware
– Surreptitiously installed on user’s computer
– May transmit user’s keystrokes or display unwanted ads
• Google services and behavioral targeting
Figure 4.3 How Cookies Identify Web Visitors
1. The Web server reads the user's Web browser and determines the operating system,
browser name, version number, Internet address, and other information.
2. The server transmits a tiny text file with user identification information called a cookie,
which the user's browser receives and stores on the user's computer.
3. When the user returns to the Web site, the server requests the contents of any cookie
it deposited previously in the user's computer.
4. The Web server reads the cookie, identifies the visitor, and calls up data on the user.
Technical Solutions
• Solutions include:
– Email encryption
– Anonymity tools
– Anti-spyware tools
• Overall, technical solutions have failed to protect users
from being tracked from one site to another
– Browser features
“Private” browsing
“Do not track” options
Property Rights: Intellectual Property
• Intellectual property
– Tangible and intangible products of the mind created by
individuals or corporations
• Protected in four main ways:
– Copyright
– Patents
– Trademarks
– Trade secrets
Challenges to Intellectual Property
Rights
• Digital media different from physical media
– Ease of replication
– Ease of transmission (networks, Internet)
– Ease of alteration
– Compactness
– Difficulties in establishing uniqueness
• Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DM C A)
Computer-Related Liability Problems
• If software fails, who is responsible?
• If seen as part of a machine that injures or harms, software
producer and operator may be liable
• If seen as similar to book, difficult to hold author/publisher
responsible
• If seen as a service, would this be similar to telephone
systems not being liable for transmitted messages?
System Quality: Data Quality and
System Errors
• What is an acceptable, technologically feasible level of
system quality?
– Flawless software is economically unfeasible
• Three principal sources of poor system performance
– Software bugs, errors
– Hardware or facility failures
– Poor input data quality (most common source of
business system failure)
Quality of Life: Equity, Access,
Boundaries (1 of 3)
• Negative social consequences of systems
• Big Tech: concentrating economic and political power
• Rapidity of change: reduced response time to competition
• Maintaining boundaries: family, work, and leisure
• Dependence and vulnerability
• Computer crime and abuse
Quality of Life: Equity, Access,
Boundaries (2 of 3)
• Computer crime and abuse
– Computer crime
– Computer abuse
– Spam
– CAN-SPAM Act of 2003
• Employment
– Trickle-down technology
– Reengineering job loss
Quality of Life: Equity, Access,
Boundaries (3 of 3)
• Equity and access
– The digital divide
• Health risks
– Repetitive stress injury (RS I)
– Carpal tunnel syndrome (CT S)
– Computer vision syndrome (CV S)
– Technostress
How Will MI S Help My Career?
• The Organization: Pinnacle Air Force Base
• Position Description: Junior privacy analyst
• Job Requirements
• Interview Questions
• Author Tips
