COMPUTER ETHICS
AND
THE ONLINE WORLD
INTRODUCTION TO
ETHICS AND
MORALITY
ETHICS V.S. MORALITY
• ETHICS
• set of beliefs considered right and wrong within a society
(Reynolds, G., 2010).
• MORALITY
• individual views on what is right and wrong (Reynolds, G., 2010).
• influenced by certain factors (education, age, gender, religion).
• LAW
• System of rules on what we can and cannot do (Reynolds, G.,
2010).
ETHICS ON BUSINESS
• Businesses are growing more and more sensitive to making ethical decisions
due to the risks associated with unethical ones.
• Example:
• China (2006) – Work on the Haxin chip – technology which could be used
for multimedia files and fingerprint verification – was stopped and Chen
Jin, its designer, got fired from being the dean of microelectronics due to
the work being allegedly owned by a former Motorola subsidiary,
Freescale Semiconductors (Toy, M., 2006).
• Dell (2006-2007) – Ratings dropped by 5% due to numerous complaints
on being unable to provide ample technical support in terms of long waits
on calls and frequent transfers (Reynolds, G., 2010).
ETHICAL DECISION MAKING
Four common approaches to decision making:
• Virtue Ethics Approach – tendency to commit the most convenient action or
follow an admired person’s approach (Reynolds, G., 2010).
• Utilitarian Approach – making a decision based on the common point of all
interests.
• Fairness Approach – fair opportunities are given to all parties regardless of
differences.
• Common Good Approach – making decisions based on its overall impact to
the community.
INTRODUCTION
TO COMPUTER
ETHICS AND ITS
IMPORTANCE
COMPUTER ETHICS
• Refers to the ethical use, development, and handling of information
technology (Brey, P., 2007)
• Covers setting of policies with regards to regulation of information
technology in the society as well (Brey, P., 2007).
IMPORTANCE OF COMPUTER
ETHICS
• It involves the well-being of millions of people with regards to the digital
information stored on the Internet and computers.
• Mishandling of technology and the information associated with it could
result to a wide scale threat to the public’s data privacy and could lead to
mass paranoia.
• Financial losses could also be a result of misuse of technologies which
can trigger economic issues.
COMMON ETHICAL ISSUES / CYBER CRIMES
ASSOCIATED WITH I.T. AND ONLINE SITES
• SOFTWARE PIRACY
• Acquiring / Redistribution of licensed software through illegal means.
• DIGITAL PLAGIARISM
• Duplication of one’s work published on the internet without the author’s
consent or proper referencing.
• HACKING
• Act of unauthorized access to devices
CONT.
• HARASSMENT, HATE SPEECH, CYBERBULLYING
• Usage of technology to harm other people through harsh words.
• ONLINE LIBEL
• Usage of technology to degrade another person and cause potential harm.
• PHISHING
• Act of deceiving internet users into submitting their account credentials for personal
gain.
• HACKTIVISM / CYBERTERRORISM
• Usage of technology to conduct acts related to achieving a political or societal goal
(Reynolds, G., 2010).
• Usage of technology to instill fear into the public and force the government to comply
with the demands of the cyberterrorists.
ETHICAL ISSUES ON ONLINE SOCIAL
NETWORKS AND OTHER SITES
Social Networks
• Projecting existing real world social connections into the virtual /
online world (Turculeţ, M., 2014).
Issues on online sites are primarily divided into three, namely:
• Privacy
• Anonymity
• Trust
ETHICAL ISSUES ON ONLINE SOCIAL
NETWORKS AND OTHER SITES: PRIVACY
Privacy
• One’s right to determine when to and when not to disclose personal information.
Major Issues on Online Sites affecting Privacy:
• Monitoring of online users’ activities wherein information regarding them is gathered
and analyzed (Turculet, M., 2014).
• Nowadays, activities of online users are commonly recorded and stored in logs for easier tracking
when the need arises. However, misuse of this process could result to unfavorable effects for the
user.
• An example of this would be to that of Facebook wherein they have a feature called ‘Activity Logs’
which you could use to track an account’s activities including likes, comments, shares, etc.
CONT.
• Collection of the users’ data done by government or private institutions
(Turculet, M., 2014).
• With the presence of search engines and online social networks, information retrieval
has been easier and with this, collection of information about users’ interests came as
well.
• An example of this would be with Google, Google saves all your searches and
constructs an ad profile based on your searches to provide you advertisements that fit
your ‘personality’ based on your said profile.
• It affects the users’ privacy in the sense that, users with less knowledge on the
internet are not aware of what data gather institutions do and information about them
are at times saved without their consent.
SOLUTIONS FOR ETHICAL ISSUES
CONCERNING PRIVACY
• Making the public well-informed of the choices they can make which protect their
interests (Turculet, M., 2014).
• This can be done in order to let the users know what they can do to adjust what online
sites can and cannot do on their personal information (ex. Setting of security settings
on Facebook, Google, etc.).
• Allow the users to view third party applications’ activities through the use of software
(Turculet, M., 2014).
• With the use of this solution, users can be aware of what information are being
gathered about them even with those of lesser knowledge about the internet.
CONT.
• Promotion of Anonymity (Turculet, M., 2014).
• Through anonymity, the users’ personal data are secured, however,
the actions done by the users might not be traced easily with this.
ETHICAL ISSUES ON ONLINE SOCIAL
NETWORKS AND OTHER ONLINE SITES:
ANONYMITY AND TRUST
Anonymity
• Refers to being anonymous disclosing little to no personal information to others.
Major Issues on Online Sites concerning Anonymity and Trust:
• With the absence of physical connections between users, trust is not easily built
as compared to that of real world social relationships (Turculet, M., 2014).
• It might be that a user’s personal information indicated on a social network site is not real
and could affect him when it comes to building trust with other users.
CONT.
• Deception on the online community could become rampant in order to
protect personal information which would make building trust even
more difficult (Turculet, M., 2014).
SOLUTIONS FOR ETHICAL ISSUES
CONCERNING PRIVACY
• The use and implementation of a “review” system for websites (Turculet, M., 2014).
• With the use of the “review” system, users can log in on a website and leave positive,
negative, or neutral feedback regarding other users (Turculet, M., 2014). Just like with
that of online shopping sites, users can comment on sellers’ accounts to either voice out
their opinions on the sellers’ merchandise or recommend it to others.
• Deception could also be used to build trust (Turculet, M., 2014).
• This can be achieved through considering the online world as the real world. With
minimal adjustments of our ‘profile’ in the online community, we could start building
trust by portraying someone who is like our own selves but with a few additionals
(Turculet, M., 2014).
DISCUSSION: LOCAL ETHICAL
ISSUES
• Hacking done on COMELEC’s website (Mar. 27, 2016)
• As said by the hackers, the hacking was done to urge the COMELEC to implement
security features on the PCOS machines (Crisostomo, S., 2016).
• The hackers made the downloaded database available for the public and compromised the
security of each individual registered to COMELEC (Crisostomo, S., 2016).
• Thoughts?
• BDO ATMs skimming issues (Jun 21, 2017)
• Seven ATMs were confirmed by BDO Unibank as compromised by skimming hacks
(ABS-CBN News, 2017).
• Skimming devices used enabled the perpetrators to get the consumers’ card details as
well as the PIN assigned to the cards.
• Thoughts?
CONT.
• BPO Senior Manager charged with online libel
• The plaintiff filed an online libel case against a co-worker who posted
two photos of the complainant captioned with “I’d do anything for
money.” and “revenge is sweet and not fattening. Perhaps, someone we
know should have limited their diet to revenge rather than feasting on
the fat of other people’s labor.” (Dalipe, J., 2016).
• Thoughts?
REFERENCES
• ABS-CBN News. (2017, June 21). Retrieved from [Link]
compromised-in-skimming-official
• Brey, P. (2007). Computer Ethics in (Higher) Education. Retrieved from
[Link]
• Crisostomo, S. (2016, March 19). Comelec Website Hacked. Retrieved from
[Link]
• Dalipe, J. (2016, October 24). Retrieved from [Link]
senior-manager-faces-online-libel-case-505555
• Reynolds, G. (2010). Principles Of Ethics In Information Technology (Philippine Edition).
• Turculet, M. (2014). Ethical Issues Concerning Online Social Networks. Retrieved from
[Link]
• Toy, M. (2006, May 16). Retrieved from [Link]
fake/2006/05/15/[Link]