AUTHOR
Mikko T. Siponen and Jorma Kajava

ABSTRACT

IT professionals, as any other group of professionals, are expected to show correct and loyal conduct. This means that they should learn to balance technical knowledge with ethical and social information. IT professionals project an image of their profession and the company they represent to the general public. Therefore, they should bear in mind what it means to act in a professional or occupational role, and what the responsibilities and obligations are that employees have to their employer and vice versa. In addition, they have to take into account the business culture of their organisation.

The problem is that professional ethics in the field of IT has not yet reached such a sophisticated level. Even though scholars stress the significance of an ethical approach to IT, current discussion on professional ethics has been restricted to such issues as codes of conduct and the exposition of certain empirical or hypothetical cases. This is clearly not enough. What is missing, in our view, is a holistic framework. Unfortunately, until recently, scholars interested in computer ethics have not been able to provide profound arguments and visions upon which to base professional ethical codes. This causes a motivation problem, because IT professionals have no visions and goals of the kind that, for example, doctors, policemen and priests have. People need motivation or incentives, and these can only be based on profound argumentation. Without answers to ‘why questions’ and a thorough discussion, the codes remain in the realm of rhetoric, serving merely to polish the image of the profession. But the truth is that professional ethics must not, and cannot, be based merely on rhetoric. Unfortunately, this seems to be the case according to certain surveys based on questionnaires. Even though rhetoric may help to increase motivation, it cannot provide a solid basis for professional ethics. The basis of morality is that people have a real intuitive concern about right and wrong and a motivation to abide by their convictions.

Professional (normative) ethics should be based on a clear view of society and the relationship between society and a particular profession (IT in this case), and of the social effects and values that the profession wants to serve. Morality, in turn, should be based on how professionals actually act and think. What this professional conduct is and what the principles and premises underpinning it are, should be clarified in no uncertain terms. Professionals should be able to prove that their conduct, values, beliefs and actions stand up to closer inspection and a critical moral analysis. Only having established a secure foundation, we are in a position to engage in ethical rhetoric.

A secure foundation emphasises ethical knowledge, or the prerequisites of computer ethical thinking, as we call it. This term stands for technical knowledge (T), relevant moral philosophical knowledge (MP), and the so-called Environment factor (E), which we will outline below. MP has to separate inadequate, absurd or trivial ethical notions from appropriate ones. Current research in other fields shows that professional skills are combined with significant moral and emotional factors. To bring these factors to bear on the IT context and to outline modern professional ethical skills, we want to suggest some preliminary themes concerning moral know-how in the field of IT: Moreover, we claim that these skills constitute a necessary part of any professional qualification in our line of business.

To put it briefly, we can argue that professional actions are based on moral know-how when professional people consequently apply their moral judgement to all problems, and when they are consciously aware of the moral qualifiers and principles behind their choices in these situations. This presupposes that people feel that the professional norms of their field are intuitively correct and, consequently, have a motivation to follow these principles. This includes taking into account moral dangers, moral motivation and weakness.

In addition to the aforementioned factors, T, MP and E, constituting the prerequisites of ethical thinking, we have to recognise the existence of selfishness and unselfishness, irrelevant issues and different moral goals. In addition, we should explore acting beyond the call of duty and converse double standards of morality.

The application of moral know-how is an on-going process, starting with the recognition of one’s own ethical codes and moral qualifiers and comparing them with those of others in order to progress morally and increase moral know-how. This involves the recognition of professional responsibilities, duties and rights.

Moral know-how also includes honesty and the ability to understand other people and their perspectives. Decision-making ability plays a key role here. We should regard all kinds of conflicts (involving an emotional or a moral dimension) as a possibility to develop our moral behaviour (moral know-how), because it has been shown that conflicts can be a source of progress in a working team if the members have moral know-how and interact with each other. As a consequence, we have to do our best to create such a working environment and such an atmosphere that ethical dilemmas can be discussed openly, objectively and constructively. Moral know-how creates a better working environment and better relationships between professionals, increases trust between professionals and non-professionals and, indeed, increases harmonious human life and well-being in general.

AUTHOR
Mikko T. Siponen and Jorma Kajava

ABSTRACT

This paper will identify the various dimensions of the components of computer ethics in order to formulate them more clearly. All our conclusions on the subject are based on IT security related research combined with a moral philosophical survey. In addition to our empirical research work relating particularly to awareness and education, we are currently doing empirical research on morality and IT and giving courses on computer ethics and IT security.

We argue that the components of computer ethics play a significant role in the overall ethical comprehension of information technology, a fact that should be stressed when striving to develop a holistic view of an ethically more relevant society. Currently, there seems to be no holistic view and no appropriate methods and approaches to cope with the ethical challenges presented by information technology. Indeed, as our empirical research on computer ethics shows, if the elements of computer ethics are not perceived correctly, the mission of computer ethics, as we interpret it, may be based on inadequate premises.

We propose that computer ethics consists of the following elements: multiple decision-making stages and levels of awareness and a thorough understanding of dimensional factors including different methods, theories and education. Some examples of these will be given in the actual presentation.

In this paper, we preliminarily divide the issues we want to discuss to ethical and moral (e.g., hacking, virus creation) ones. Varying levels of awareness and diverse educational strategies come in handy, for instance, when dealing with problems such as so-called conceptual muddles and lack of awareness. We argue further that there is no appropriate definition of computer ethics demarcating its scope and content. Thus, one of the main problems in the field is in fact the undisciplined nature of the whole field of study. To remedy the situation, the most relevant issues should be put into some kind of preference order. For this reason, we have put forward some preliminary ideas about delimiting the scope of ethics. This has helped us to solve some dilemmas. The field of computer ethics is rife with misunderstanding and misuse of terminology even with respect to such key terms as ethics and morality. We will try to sort out the differences and assess their real value for computer ethics.

Moreover, we will apply the dimensions of morality (overriding, prescriptive, autonomous and universal) borrowed from moral philosophy to computer ethical issues. This is because our empirical studies show that it is important to bring the real nature of normative ethics under study. Their meaning within the framework of IT is not properly understood even though they constitute a key factor within the realm of ethics. We shall also explore a problem mentioned earlier on in this paper; namely, the definition of computer ethics. We claim that it should cover the whole area of ethics exhaustively, as in this paper, and that the inadequate, trivial and absurd must be separated from the appropriate. In addition to this, the definition should be based on such aspects as enable harmonious human life in general, because we are not isolated individuals and the coherence of human life must be emphasised.

Furthermore, the indirect relation between morality, habits and laws will be explored. In spite of the self-evident differences between these aspects (e.g., the difference between the legal and moral aspects of an action), we maintain that they intermingle and permeate the field of computer ethics, because they play a part in our conception of what constitutes use or abuse of information technology. Our empirical research supports the view that this aspect must be taken into consideration. If the dimensions of the other two functions to computer ethics and moral conduct particularly are not taken into account, we have difficulties dealing with people who may inadvertently undertake some action that comes under the area of computer ethics in a moral sense. In addition to covering holistically the area of computer ethics, the different dimensions of the components of computer ethics are also designed to cover the possible lack of moral behaviour and the vulnerabilities of computer ethics.

AUTHOR
Chris Simpson and Oliver Burmeister

ABSTRACT

Is it possible for the global community raise itself out of the rut of economic rationalism?

Yes it is! Academics can be instrumental in a grass roots approach to solving this problem, by adequately enabling tomorrow’s professionals to express broader vision and renewed values in all that they do and with all whom they meet.

This paper proposes several enabling strategies, supported by results of a survey of student perceptions of current in-course industry experience administration. Although the discussion applies to technical disciplines, particularly Information Technology and Engineering, it should still be of general cross-disciplinary interest.

It is important to follow the logical train of thought that has led us to suggest these strategies:

Why does this economic rationalist rut hurt so much? It is an unethical and inhumane, all pervasive ethos, in which wrong decisions are knowingly being made. They are wrong because of the singular and inadequate measure of worth being used – money. Furthermore, such decisions are often being made conscious of, but helpless against a system that is so powerful and globally pervasive. The rut is channelling the community into crisis.

Much of the social agony and environmental destruction resulting from this outlook has been directly or indirectly attributable to computing tools, that have allowed an information revolution to gather pace and a gap to widen between new techniques and awareness of their consequences.

Can we, the Information Technologists and Computer Engineers, begin to curb and redress some of the license born of our creations and discoveries? Yes, some of us can. Can we take responsibility and find ways of taming and humanising applications of this powerful and compulsive technology? Yes, there are ways. Is it not a similar problem that, say, nuclear and biological scientists have had to face? Perhaps the scale differs, but that is not the point.

The real problem lies not with the technology, itself benign, but as throughout history, with the attitudes of the human beings: those who apply the technology to their own ends. The influential choice has always been with these entrepreneurial people. Around the world they, being fallible, have provided the basic motive for people concerned about ethical issues to form groups that collectively aim to prevent gross abuses. However, many efforts towards ethical reform are not succeeding. Possibly the most effective reform will come from the grass roots, as the following two compelling reasons suggest:

Firstly, there has been a widespread tendency for executive management to take up and abuse ethical integrity through misinterpretation and institutionalisation of originally good principles such as the elusive “quality” and euphemistic “efficiency”. In its distorted form “ethics” is currently sweeping the world, being used as a political weapon and means of justification rather than in a selfless, caring sense. Glossy ethics is no substitute for the real thing. Vested interest and job security play persuasive parts in trapping administrators into dehumanising decisions.

Secondly, within the range of a particular discipline of interest, the basic aim of an ethics group, such as a professional body, has been to generate guidelines for the humane and sensitive use of their technology, to carefully keep watch, and to whistle-blow in blatant cases of breach. However, as many members (particularly managers) are under increasing pressure from economic rationalism and vested interest in the workplace, such aims are less likely to be applied without compromise.

A grass roots approach is accessible via those destined for, but not yet in industry, namely our budding professionals: our students! It is they who can influence their workplace colleagues and supervisors with fresh, alternative and viable attitudes, with vision and awareness of the consequences of their work or design upon client, wider community and environment. They can apply their courage and new awareness to measure worth in more humane terms than before, and likewise constructively challenge the entrenched ways.

This cannot occur without adequate relevant education. Thus, an astonishing, new and urgent imperative for the academic community is to take up the responsibility for this essential revolution of attitude, that most people desperately long for, by finding and applying ways to make it succeed!

Help is at hand. A timely new wave of ethical awareness is rapidly growing, especially among academics. The literature is expanding and centres have been set up that address a specific discipline’s attitudes to ethical questions and organise relevant international conferences. In other words, a growing academic support environment already exists, perfect for encouraging fresh, worthwhile initiatives.

Currently, Information Technology and Engineering courses typically contain relatively little non-technical education. What little exists is inferred through perhaps a (social) communications subject early in the course, some group projects, and design subjects like software engineering, that embrace some project management, social and legal issues. But this is minimal. The balance is quite wrong if one considers that probably half of an average professional’s day to day activities are non-technical. Furthermore, what about ethical issues per se? There are three major strategies proposed:

First, every subject in a course should include much more indirect attention to human/ environmental issues in an ethical light as part of, or extensions to, normal examples and exercises. At ETHICOMP96 and earlier, Don Gotterbarn has shown practical ways of doing this.

Second, introduce into a course a specific subject or thread, designed to provide some otherwise neglected training in non-technical aspects of professional practice, including a good, hard look at ethical values. Swinburne University of Technology (SUT) School of Information Technology, has experience with a specific final year non-technical, ethics- based subject “Computing in the Human Context”. An interesting observation is that the effect of this subject is significantly more profound among those students who, after second year, took a year-long Work- Integrated Learning (WIL) placement, which at present is optional.

Third, substantial industrial experience should be an important part of a course. One example we can point to is a very successful Business Information Technology scholarship course at SUT. A student survey will have been conducted by the time the full paper is written, which should illuminate various aspects from the student perspective. We will also consider industry liaison opportunities that can run in parallel with WIL.

Suggested strategies can all be improved and refined to further expand the far-sightedness, sensitivity and social responsibility of graduates. But consider that even now, some graduates are influencing their colleagues, supervisors and clients to think more broadly. With renewed values, they are applying humane vision to their work and through this, providing benefit to the whole community and the environment. That gives us hope.

The grass roots revolution has already begun to redress the computer application disasters of our generation.

AUTHOR
Alexandra Samuel

ABSTRACT

In the American debate over the 1995 Immigration Reform Act, the software industry clashed with information technology professionals over proposed reductions in visas allowing programmer immigration. The debate over visa restrictions obscured the relationship between coder immigration, largely from India, and offshore software production, primarily in India. An examination of industry practices shows that the immigration of Indian programmers and the India-based production of U.S. software firms form one coherent, intercontinental coding system. This system has grown out of the investment policies of the Indian government, the immigration policies of the U.S. government, and the technological developments that allow U.S. software firms to make effective use of both offshore and immigrant coding. The 1995 Immigration Reform Act debate reflected the way in which intercontinental coding has eroded the boundaries between existing policy domains, and continued controversy shows that effective policy requires an understanding of the relationship between programmer immigration and offshore software production.

AUTHOR
Samer A. Salem

ABSTRACT

The rapid pace in the world of communications and computers has prompted some analysts to call the twentieth century the century of information.

Evolution of IT has started many years ago, but the real growth occurred in the last two decades. For example, the current use of the Internet technology is changing the world\x{FFFD}s culture. People are using email from their portables and hand-held computers to contact each other rather than sending faxes and letters. They are trading and making business over the net without even knowing or seeing each other. They also share relevant information and actively participate in group discussions.

The use of information technology is everywhere. You can not go without recognizing it in every place; in governmental authorities, at work, in the airports and tourists offices, and even in the supermarkets.

People get their medical insurance, social security records and issue their driving licenses in a computer format. In the near future, the Egyptian citizens will be having their national IDs using a large database system developed by the cabinet Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC) to issue unique identification numbers.

The world’s culture is highly dependent on IT. Whenever a computer system suffers a breakdown, most of the business processes are paused. In the last few weeks, for example, the space vehicle MER has encountered serious problems in its computer system. This has led to its course deviation and even losing its track. Both the Soviet and American space authorities send a repair vehicle to replace the malfunctioning computer in MER.

Cyberspace, or the electronic frontier, may be perceived as a retreat of communities; some communities are linked whereas others are isolated. Communities currently use technology and share data and information, however they do not share a hierarchy of virtues and ethics to use this technology. Although IT is very important, the misuse of this technology is very dangerous and can raise many problems. Many countries are depending on their existing databases and technology resources which makes it crucial to lose any data or manipulate it by unauthorized entities.

The ethics dilemma about privacy issues in today’s use of technology has been much explored. It mandated many ethical and technical challenges over both the individual and group behaviour. The question being raised is how to keep individual and organizational privacy? The discussion of privacy from a personal perspective vs. organization’s viewpoint is a continuing debate.

One of the main concerns of this modern technology is keeping privacy. Everyone needs to be sure that his/her own documents and emails are not accessed except by him/her permission. Organizations need to secure its data and hide it from intruders and illegal use. Government records are extremely important to secure and so is the banking and stock exchanges records and transactions.

Keeping privacy is a two dimensions matter; a technical dimension and the a personal dimension. The technical dimension has to secure the handling of data and ensure that the data is encrypted and secured. It is the responsibility of technology to provide solutions to prohibit the unauthorized entities from hacking into others’ information. On the other hand, people and society share the other part of responsibility to use the information in a more ethical behaviour.

The ethical behaviour can be imposed in organizations by adopting adequate organization structure and appropriate control. People use or misuse of technology is highly dependent on their organizations; the system which does not allow to share relevant information among the employees is risking their violation of rules to get this information by themselves.

The use of technology will enforce people to change so as to adapt to the advance in technology, many norms have to be changed. Those social impacts are crucial in sustaining a successful business and good working environment.

The outline proposed hereinafter provides a framework of using IT in a more ethical behaviour from both organizations and individuals and discusses the social impact of IT on the people’s culture.

Introduction

Overview of IT evolution Current use of IT Social impact of using technology

Privacy

Computer crimes and privacy intrusion Defining privacy Computer privacy Privacy in Internet / banking security Privacy in governmental records Egyptian viewpoint to applying privacy

Ethics dimensions

Networking ethics and netiquette Ethics in science Ethics in scientific research and copyrights Computer ethics Ethics in company’s information and governmental file keeping

Factors affecting ethical behaviour

Personal culture Business environment Organizational structure

Responsibilities in the world of technology

Personal responsibilities Organization responsibilities Governmental responsibilities International responsibilities

Developing an ethical strategy in Egyptian organizations

Copyrights dilemma in Egypt Benefits of violating copyrights Problems facing applying ethical behaviour Promoting ethical culture

AUTHOR
Richard S. Rosenberg

ABSTRACT

Almost exactly ten years ago, the now extinct U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) released a major report – The Electronic Supervisor: New Technology, New Tensions. * This report describes a number of new technologies available to management in its ongoing search to ensure that labour performs its required job to management’s rigid specifications. Social issues raised with respect to electronic monitoring included privacy, fairness, quality of working life, and stress-related illnesses. The study was also concerned with drug testing, genetic screening, polygraph testing, as well as a variety of technologies for eavesdropping and monitoring. It seems to be appropriate to evaluate the analyses and recommendations made in the report and to extend the evaluation to current technologies.

Although keystroke monitoring was considered, the sophistication of current computer monitoring now encompasses e-mail, web surfing and newsgroup participation in a much more sophisticated manner. The development of active badges now permits management to precisely locate employees within a few feet, anywhere in the work environment. Every workplace technology seems to have the potential to be used to measure, monitor, and control, functions that many companies have eagerly adopted. It should be pointed out that the use of monitoring technologies to encourage employees to meet stated management objectives such as courtesy, promptness, and helpfulness in public interactions, is a recognized prerogative of management and a part of many union contracts.

This paper will be organized in the following way. Several areas of workplace monitoring will be introduced and described; among these are computer monitoring ranging from keystrokes to e-mail to web sites, drug testing, genetic testing, and mobile, personal, and building recording and scanning systems. Specific examples in Canada and the U.S. will be presented in this context, including the following:

• Smyth v. Pillsbury, an important 1996 case involving e-mail monitoring.
• Other e-mail monitoring cases
• The discovery of pornography on workplace computers in Canada and elsewhere.
• Current state of genetic technology in predicting both the probability and certainty of acquiring a variety of illnesses.
• Other examples of potentially controlling technologies.

Given that such technologies have been around for several years, it is a worthwhile exercise to explore the existence, or absence for that matter, of policies and guidelines with respect to the use of surveillance technologies. How open are major companies with respect to their use of such policies and what role if any do their employees have with their development? Such organizations as Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility and the International Labour Organization have recently released workplace guidelines. These guidelines will be introduced and discussed as well as some existing representative management examples.

Based on the technologies, examples, issues, and policies presented, we will situate the current analysis in the historical continuum of management’s desire to control most, if not every aspect of the work process. Especially relevant are the approaches now referred to as Fordism or Taylorism. In this context, not much is very surprising about current workplace technologies with their morning to evening and local to distant pervasive intrusions into the daily working lives of many employees. Thus, computer technologies, that have long been hailed as significant contributors to increased productivity, have been widely employed as tools of surveillance, with the predictable side effect that workplace stress levels have increased and worker autonomy and commitment yet further eroded.

In the shadow of the OTA report and in the light of current technologies, policies and recommendations will be proposed that both recognize management’s authority and respect workers’ rights. It is often argued that because management owes its primary allegiance to its company’s shareholders, its concern with the creation of humane working conditions is not a primary goal. Although many companies have expressed a commitment to ethical behaviour both in business dealings and in employee working conditions and other relations (a claim vociferously promoted by UPS during its recent strike), most observers of the labour scene are not convinced. For those companies that genuinely believe that a workforce treated with respect and trust will be more productive, these recommendations may be helpful in achieving their aims.

Of the several findings of the OTA report, the following, #2, may be the most relevant for the purposes of this paper:

Computer-based systems offer opportunities for organizing work in new ways, as well as means of monitoring it more intensively. Electronic monitoring is most likely to raise opposition among workers when it is imposed without worker participation, when standards are perceived as unfair, or when performance records are used punitively. Worker involvement in design and implementation of monitoring programs can result in greater acceptance by workers, but despite activities of labor unions in some industries and recent progress in labor-management cooperation in others, most firms do not have mechanisms to do this.

Has much changed in the intervening years? Again, no definitive answers are available but this paper will attempt to explore the current situation and to compare it with the world described about ten years ago.