AUTHOR

Professor Chuck Huff, St Olaf College, USA

ABSTRACT

No matter what career they choose, almost all of our students will spend their work lives in organizations. Our goals in teaching computer ethics to these students should be informed by what we know about how ethical computing decisions are made in organizations. Toward that end, I will bring together in this talk three strands of scholarship that rarely speak with each other: social science research on technology in organizations, psychological research on moral reasoning and behavior, and curricular standards and pedagogy in computer ethics. I will conclude that we can teach in a way that supports moral and ethical behavior, but that our teaching goal will need to be broadened beyond our usual focus on the individual student to include changing the culture of computing in organizations.

LOCATION:
Universidade Lusiada, Lisbon, Portugal

DATES:
13 to 15 November 2002

HOSTED BY:
Faculty of Business Universidade Lusiada, Lisbon, Portugal

IN ASSOCIATION WITH:
Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility, De Montfort University, UK
Research Center on Computing and Society, Southern Connecticut State University, USA
Software Engineering Ethics Research Institute, East Tennessee State University, USA

CONFERENCE DIRECTORS:
Dra I Alvarez, Universidade Lusiada, Portugal
Professor Terrell Ward Bynum, Southern Connecticut State University, USA
Professor J A A Lopes, Universidade Lusiada, Portugal
Professor Simon Rogerson, De Montfort University, UK

SPONSORS:
International Society for Ethics and Information Technology (INSEIT)
The Institute for the Management of Information Systems (IMIS)

Continue reading “ETHICOMP2002 – Lisbon, Portugal”

AUTHOR

Dr Grazyna Zurkowska-Krakowska and
Witold Sikorski Wydawnictwo
MIKOM

ABSTRACT

The paper refers to the topics concerned with information technologies in education. The authors cover four groups of problems starting from general topics to a publishing example. The basic aim is to analyse how information technologies influence education process and perception of information by the pupils. It is very crucial question as young people start to use computer before they start to read. And so in the future they may be not good readers at all.

1. Information technologies in education

Information technologies in education are present in every field. It is not only teaching computers, it is teaching any subject using computers. It basic change that is observed in the recent years. The point is to use new technologies as a tool, not forgetting about basic subjects. Often the teachers and pupils are fascinated by technology forgetting what it serves.

2. Impact on traditional perception (reading, writing, verbal communication)

Information technologies have significant impact on the perception of young people. Contact with the screen since childhood may result in reading problems. Computer, television, games are all visual – serve pictures not words. Thus create another perception style diminishing the role of reading and mind training.

3. The role of education in the field of information technologies in schools

It is very important for the schools to create a proper approach of young people towards information technologies. The school should educate in information technology itself, teach to use it as a tool in various subjects and show other means of communication stressing its values. The school should teach information technology as a part of human culture that may not dominate over other elements of culture and education.

We would like to assist in an open model of education by publishing books that develop the habit of critical thinking and show electronic media as the problem-solving tools. It is important to deliver to the school children good quality information concerning new technologies and show them how to benefit from it. The cultural values should not be lost in the electronic way of education. We are especially sensitive about that.

The aim is to publish books devoted to virtual education as show in our books alternative educational strategies. Inviting experienced authors and young generation teachers helps to share their experience and creates expectation towards a network-based education. Those publications cover broad spectrum of topics and wide scale of young people needs and expectations. They should be taught how to make sense out of what they find on the net and show them how to evaluate it and master it. Offering them a broad spectrum of priceless resources of information on electronic media will help to make them more critical and more understanding and therefore more prepared to the modern challenges.

4. Textbooks and other publication as a source of computer education

Computer education has to be well presented to the public. Teacher requires a good textbook – not just another computer manual. The pupil needs to get practical examples showing where to use the tools, in place of mere presentation how to use them. Publishing company which we represent tries to fulfil that mission publishing simple exercise books with lots of practical examples, academic books for the students and books presenting the coexistence of traditional cultural values with new information technologies.

Education we are thinking of and participating in is much broader then school education. The electronic culture that we are facing now is a challenge to a society as a whole. We believe that the society has to acquire the new ability to manage with electronic media. It is still sort of terra incognita we have to cope with. We want to participate in shaping a new electronic culture by providing information on electronic media on many different levels. Publishing very carefully chosen books allows taking the responsibility for the shape of our future digital culture. We provide people of different level of knowledge with quality support and help them to establish proper skills of getting and creating information. Being the medium of information we should protect our reputation and authority publishing the books that are practical and at the same time credible. How we achieve this?

One of the methods is to present information in a way that users of any skill-level could understand and apply. To expand their knowledge and help them to understand not only how a system, a program or an application work but also how to put them to work in different environments and circumstances. Additionally they should know what does electronic way of communication mean for human activity and human life, both social and personal.

The technical contents of our books have always hidden message that is as follows: “the most important factor in a processing of information is a human being”. Conveying such a message we participate in building a high level electronic culture trying to show to our readers not only pragmatic side of information but also its moral and human side. We encourage readers, especially young ones, to take an advantage of the new technologies and new media believing that digital culture we are creating now calls for a new fundamental reorientation in thinking. We would like to shape an active approach of the users to the information. The new electronic culture will succeed only if it provides real values.

AUTHOR

Sara Wilford
CCSR
De Montfort University
Leicester
UK

ABSTRACT

How does awareness of the issues affect individuals’ perceptions of privacy? It can be argued that the level of awareness has a direct impact on the importance individuals place on personal privacy. During a recent pilot study which was undertaken as part of a larger piece of research, it was noticed, that even within a small sample, the issues of awareness and perception came to the fore. The evidence collected from this study indicated a correlation between an awareness of the issues, and individuals’ perceptions of the need and importance of privacy. This correlation suggests that the higher the levels of awareness, the greater the importance is given to privacy protection.

This paper will seek to explore the extent to which privacy awareness and privacy perceptions are influenced by each other. It will discuss awareness of both the negative and positive abilities of information and communications technology (ICT), and will place an emphasis on the possibilities for privacy invasion and the potential effect this may have on individual perceptions in the future. What may not be seen as important now may eventually become a major issue of concern, by which time, legislation may already be in place and any change or reversal of policy seen as unworkable or impractical. The future for a free society may well be threatened by a lack of importance placed on privacy issues today.

Privacy has long been an area of debate and disagreement. Many advocates of privacy protection cite the threat to civil liberties and the danger of a panoptic society among the reasons for that need (Lyon 1994, Introna 1999, Spinello 1998). However, there is a need to establish the perceptions of individuals as to the extent of protection required within society. Ignorance of the issues of privacy and perceived need may lead to protection being inadequate or inappropriate. The importance of raising awareness within society has never been greater.

ICTs present new threats and dangers to privacy which may lead to the erosion of our rights and liberties without the awareness within society of the dangers the loss of privacy may engender. These dangers may include, extensive dossiers on many or all members of society, coercion of ‘undesireables’ which could include political opponents, state control reaching Orwellian proportions and the loss of free speech due to the potential for constant surveillance.

What is suggested here is that by ensuring a general awareness of the threats to society that ICT brings, there is a greater possibility that many of the more extreme scenarios can be avoided. However, the low publicity, back door approach to legislation currently being used by the British Government and others to introduce controls such as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers bill 2000, may mean that decision makers are already aware of the potential unease such regulations may produce within the citizenry, and are choosing to play down and minimise exposure and debate.

It is also important to be aware of positive issues which may be ignored or overlooked and which are important to maintain a balanced approach to privacy protection. Positive aspects are those such as access to a wide range of information via the Internet, increases in the speed of service provision and the maintenance of up-to-date records.

The quality of available information and its positive or negative emphasis may have an impact on the perceptions of individuals. Information needs to be delivered in an unbiased way and awareness of issues is not merely a case of digesting the facts as they are presented. We obtain much of our information about prominent issues from media exposé and commercial marketing ploys, neither of which can be said to be unbiased or always particularly informative of the actual issues. Government papers and official documents often prove lengthy, difficult to interpret, and available only to those who already know where to look. Therefore, an increase in the general awareness of privacy issues may only be possible when individuals have sufficient unbiased information presented in an accessible format.

Differences in culture and language may also impact on awareness. Often direct translations may produce slightly different meanings than that originally intended. Therefore, awareness between cultures within the same societal group may differ and need to be addressed.

Analysis of previous work has highlighted a lack of study of individual perceptions on privacy issues. This paper introduces the background to work in progress on individual perceptions of privacy within organisations. The research will enable some reflection to be made on societal trends in perceptions. It will also highlight the problems of privacy policy formulation for a society in which the majority are poorly informed, and therefore largely ignorant of the potential dangers the unbridled use of ICTs may bring.

AUTHOR

Janusz Wielki, Ph.D.,
Technical University of Opole,
Faculty of Management and Production Engineering,
Poland

ABSTRACT

Rapid development of information technology, and particularly the emergence the Internet, has caused many significant shifts in the marketplace and has strongly influenced consumers worldwide. As argued by Rayport and Sviokla, traditional marketplace understood as a place where physical interaction between buyer and seller takes place, has been evaluating into the marketspace. It leads to numerous important consequences. Namely transactions, which take place in the marketspace differ from those occurring in the marketplace in all aspects:

• another is content of transaction (information exchange replaces physical exchange of goods),
• different is transaction context (physical meeting of buyer and seller has been replaced by action on a computer screen),
• different is infrastructure, which makes transaction possible (computers and telecommunication lines replace shops or markets)

Additionally, while in the traditional marketplace three above mentioned elements (content, context, infrastructure) are usually aggregated, in the marketspace they can be easily disaggregated and manipulated independently.

Described above new situation influences consumers in two ways. On one hand, the development of the global marketspace gives them a lot of new opportunities and strengthens their position. The most obvious benefits comprise increased convenience of purchasing process, a wider choice of products, more detailed and complete information about them, possibility of buying customized goods and services, opportunity of comparison shopping, possibility of instant receiving on-line intangible goods (music, electronic books, software, stocks, airline tickets etc.), access to offers of merchants regardless their physical location, possibility of easy exchanging information and opinions about products with other consumers worldwide in numerous specialist discussion groups or lists and lower in some cases prices.

But there are other aspects of on-line transactions and generally electronic commerce. Despite the fact that history of the commercial utilization of the Internet is quite short (1) and that retail e-commerce sales are even in the leading countries as the U.S. still very low (2), experience acquired during these past few years leads to the conclusion that the marketspace means not only more convenience and new opportunities. There are also dangers not experienced by consumers before, new challenges as well as ethical dilemmas unknown on traditional marketplaces and all these issues are widely discussed in the paper.

First, attention is focused on dangers connected with on-line transactions. The different context of a transaction in the cyberspace (replacing the physical meeting of buyer and seller by action on a computer screen), fact that they are very often located thousands miles away from each other and situation that in many cases buyers purchase goods from firms existing only on-line (Web-only companies), results in such things as undelivered goods ordered from a Web site or on-line auctions of bogus items. Under circumstances like that trust and credibility become the key elements of on-line transactions. This aspect of e-commerce is in detail analyzed in the first part of the paper.

Next part of this article is focused on privacy issues. Experience of the first few years of electronic commerce development, proofs that this aspect of transactions conducted in the marketspace seems to be extremely important and has already evoked a lot of dilemmas as well as provoked numerous discussions. Since companies operating on-line know much more about their customers, comparing to those ones operating in the real world (name, address, preferences, history of purchased goods, credit card number etc.), such a situation provokes various dangers. It is especially important in case when a company exists only in a virtual reality and has no other assets. In situation when such a firm has financial problems their only capital, which can be sold, is database with mentioned about information. Cases of companies as More.com (3) proofed that with development of electronic commerce this issue can constitute a serious problem and solutions used so far (voluntary created by firms privacy policies) seems to be ineffective.

The following part of the paper concentrates on ethical aspects of electronic marketing. Since new environment requires from marketers revising so far used paradigms and developing new approach to relationship between marketer and consumer, they try to utilize new tools and new methods, but not always in a way which is commonly acceptable. An example can be the problem of cookies or spamming. These aspects are widely discussed in this part of the paper.

Next part of the article concentrates on methods of solving mentioned above issues. It discusses such solutions as electronic signature acts, antispam legislation, privacy policies, establishing netcoalitions in order to protect consumers’ privacy on-line, functioning of institutions as Internet Fraud Complaint Center or possibilities of utilization by consumers discussion groups or lists against dishonest companies. In the final part of the paper, conclusions and suggestions are provided.

1. For example, the most famous Internet company, Amazon.com, was established in July 1995, ITN which was the first company offering travel services over the Internet, has been functioning since May 1995, while Auto-by-Tel , the network of accredited dealers from U.S., started its business activity in March 1995.
2. According to U.S. Census Bureau, in the second quarter of 2000 it accounted for only 0.68 percent of total retail sales.
3. Company decided to sell its customer data, including information about products and prescriptions customers purchased, although it promised never to do it.

AUTHOR

Associate Professor John Weckert
Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics,
Charles Sturt University

ABSTRACT

Nanotechnology and quantum computing have the potential to radically change information technology. If these technologies are successful, and there are signs that they will be, computers will become very, very small, very, very fast, and have an enormous amount of memory relative to computers of today. This is creating excitement in some quarters, but anxiety in others. Speaking of nanotechnology, in a recent and much publicised article, Bill Joy wrote that “It is most of all the power of destructive self-replication in genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR) that should give us pause. In truth we have had in hand for years clear warnings of the dangers inherent in widespread knowledge of GNR technologies – of the possibility of knowledge alone enabling mass destruction. The only realistic alternative I see is relinquishment: to limit development of the technologies that are too dangerous, by limiting our pursuit of certain kinds of knowledge.” (Bill Joy, Wired, 8.04, 2000)

Given the variety of benefits promised by nanotechnology in medicine, the environment, and information technology, to pick out just a few, Joy’s claim seems a little strong. This paper will discuss a few worries, some raised by Joy, to see what the appropriate reaction to this technology is. Are the worries enough to give his call for a halt to research any plausibility?

While nanotechnology has potential benefits and dangers in a wide variety of areas, for example in health and in the environment as previously mentioned, we will consider here just some potential dangers in the computing area.

There are at least two sets of issues. One set concerns existing problems which will be exacerbated by the miniaturisation of computers. This miniaturisation will involve the development of smaller, much more powerful machines (much faster and with much more memory), and with much more sensitive input devices. The second set concerns potentially new problems.

Important in the first set of problems will be privacy. Vast databases that can be accessed at very high speeds will enable governments, businesses and so on to collect, store and access much more information about individuals than is possible today. In addition, the capacity for data mining, the exploration and analysis of very large amounts of data for the purpose of discovering meaningful and useful rules and patterns, will increase dramatically. And the monitoring and surveillance of workers, prisoners, and others will be greatly enhanced with the use of small, powerful computers and new sensoring devices for input.

The second set comprises problems which as yet have not arisen, at least not in any significant way. Three will be considered. First, artificial intelligences. If machines are developed that behave in much the same way as humans do, in a wide variety of contexts, the issue will arise of whether or not they are things with moral rights and responsibilities. Second, prosthetic devices. Chip implants in humans that enhance various of the senses, memory and perhaps even other capacities such a reasoning ability and creativity, may blur the distinction between human and machine. Third, virtual reality. It may become difficult to tell the difference between “real” and “virtual” reality.

After the examination of the problems, various responses will be proposed and assessed. The first set of problems should lead at least to the reassessment of privacy legislation, the use of personal information by governments and corporations, and guidelines and legislation for the use of monitoring devices. The potential new developments in the second set could force us to rethink the nature of humanity, the nature of reality, and what constitutes a meaningful and satisfying life. Finally, there should be renewed emphasis placed on examinations of the accountability and responsibilities of researchers and developers. While Joy’s claim for a halt to the research may be extravagant, there are enough worrying aspects of nanotechnology and quantum computing which should make us examine what controls may be justified and what structures put in place to maximise the chances of these technologies being beneficial rather than harmful.