Ethical Issues in Information Technology Sector

Why is Ethics Important in IT Sector?

Ethics is significant in IT Sector because

• We could not expect our life without IT, neither we could expect our life without ethics. So for IT to be integrated with our life, it should be first integrated with ethics.
• IT touches almost every aspect of modern life. So every aspect of modern life could be vulnerable to Cyber Crimes.
• Now a days IT plays an important role in framing our mindsets. So inappropriate content may effect psychological health of individual.
• IT contributes to connected society and networks and with increase in connectivity increases the vulnerability.
• Our generation has developed lifestyle around these devices. So it has become more important for it being ethical.
• IT services make up large portion of our economy.

Some Ethical Issues in Information Technology

Uncensored and uncontrolled flow of information

• DESENSITISATION
  The more fiction violence a child watches, the more acceptable aggressive behavior becomes for that child. Frequent viewing of fiction violence may cause children to be less anxious about violence. Therefore those who become desensitized to violence may perceive it as “normal” and be more likely to engage in violence themselves.
  Web series these days are showing some kind of objectionable content for attracting more audience.
• ANTI-SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
  With increasing flow and access of information it has become very easy to spread hatred. Almost behind all kind of anti-social activities, there is Information technology backing.
  Social media posts could trigger Terrorism and Communal violence .
• FAKE NEWS
  Fake news often becomes viral, making it difficult to identify the source and hold the user responsible.
• PORNOGRAPHY
• CYBER-BULLYING
  Once you have posted something, it is not yours anymore and it can go viral as fast as a fire in the forest without asking for your permission which then can’t only affect your reputation but also the person or company you were disparaging about.
  Trolling is most common form of cyberbullying.

Improper Anonymity and Distorted Endorsements

If one represent himself with wrong affiliations, credentials or expertise, it is unethical to become anonymous but showing yourself to be someone different than you are. There are people who provide companies with their anonymous feedbacks which are not true and it has caused a lot of damage to companies by the fake stories of consumers of their products.
Honey Trap is also an example.

Misuse of free expertise and contests

Crowdsourcing for soliciting design ideas, the participants have the risk of making their secrets open with no reward. Most of the times, design ideas are rewarded to the most profitable partners of the social network sponsor leaving many with unrewarded work. This abuse is especially unethical if the sponsor knowingly gathers superior design ideas from contestants they have no intention of compensating.

Intellectual Property Violation

The owner has complete control of what can be done and to what extent with his original intellectual work. But due to increasing accessibility to information, Economic interest of the owners of intellectual property are violated and it has became an ethical issue.

• Copyrights Infringement[piracy]
  It refers to the unauthorized duplication of copyrighted content that is then sold at substantially lower prices in the ‘grey’ market. Free music and file downloading sites are popping up on internet every day , lots of original work like music albums, books , are being downloaded for free. Many original creators of these works are losing the credibility. This is apparent violation of copyright laws at tremendous expense to the owners of those copyrights. It can significantly damage profit margins.
  Some movies are released on torrent sites before its actual release.
• Patent infringement
  Patents are protection for any invention whether it be a product or process in the field of technology. Patent infringement is the violation of the rights secured by the owner of a patent, when someone makes an unauthorized use of another’s patent.

Plagiarism

• The act of presenting ideas/work of another as your own is plagiarism.
• With all the information that is now available on the Internet it could be done easily.
• It has became common practise among student and Researchers.
• Plagiarism is considered academic dishonesty and a breach of journalistic ethics.

Threat to Privacy

We all have our personal space where we can behave freely, be ourselves and live the way we want to. This is important for our well being that our private life remain private and we have a good control over what people should know about us. Some reasons it is being compromised are

• The electronic monitoring of people in the workplace.
  [justification by companies for the use of such technology is to increase productivity]
• The interception and reading of E-mail messages.
• Real Time Tracking Using GPS-based Location Services
• Permissions required by apps to work. Malicious apps will probably misuse the permissions you grant it by installing it.
• Some apps gain Remote access Control of your device.
• Cookies: Tiny files downloaded by Website to visitors hard drive to help identify visitors browser and track visits to site.
• Web Beacons/bugs: Tiny graphics embedded in email and web pages to monitor who is reading message.
• Spyware: programs that illicitly collect and transmit data from a computer.

Spams

Spamming refers to bombarding a user with some kind of information which does not interest him. Over-publicizing unasked promotional messages is also considered as an unethical act.

Cyber Attacks

Cyber threats are very serious issue to our nation as a whole, to our nation’s economic vitality and to our nation’s security.

• DATA BREACH
  Hackers break into databases of financial and retail institutions to steal customer information, and then use it to commit identity theft, blackmailing and other ill-intentioned things.
• SPEAR PHISHING
  Spear Phishing are designed to trick users into giving up network access.
• RANSOMEWARE
  A malicious virus which threatens to destroy your files until you pay a fee. Ukraine’s Odessa Airport is one of the victims.
• MALWARE
  A malicious code which allows to run scripts, take screenshots, capture keystrokes etc.
• Cyber attack could degrade nations military ability to defense itself.

Cyber threats are changing at the rate of growth of IT. It could inflict massive disruption on our way of life in ways that we have never imagined before.