AUTHOR
Mario Arias, Teresa Torres, Mar Souto and Rosa Queralt

ABSTRACT

Nowadays the emergence of new organizational designs are a fact. The working conditions and social consequences of new organizational models should be under revision. An important body of literature on occupational psychosocial factors has identified certain job and organizational characteristics as having deleterious effects on the psychological and physical health of workers. Some of these stressors are high workload demands coupled with low job control, role ambiguity and conflict, lack of job security or poor relationships with coworkers and supervisors among many other (Swanson, Piotrkowski, Keita, & Becker, 1997).

Working life is being transformed, which can give rise to new risk areas or change the way that occupational safety and health needs to be managed (EASHW, 2005). This has implications for workplaces themselves and also for the occupational safety and health system. For this reason the ‘Changing World of Work’ has been a priority topic of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work. The Council Resolution on a New Community Strategy on health and safety at work (2002-2006) stresses these topics as well. Most of organization based their structures in information and knowledge, and knowledge based work have new potential occupational risks that should be redefined and even discovered. Work has changed from manual to mental in nature. The most striking development is the changing nature of work itself and its increased psychosocial workload. Traditional physical risks are relatively under control in new knowledge environment, but psychosocial risks are increasing and represent an important source of health problems currently (Karasek, Theorell, 1990; Schnall, Landsbergis, Baker, 1994; Theorell, 2000). Work violence, stress, bullying, burnout, and many other problems are increasing dramatically over the last years (Diamantopoulou, 2002).

In order to determine the ICT impact on occupational psychosocial risk, our research has been based on the following steps:

• To establish a psychosocial occupational risk analysis technique. After a literature review, we used the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ) developed by the National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH). This method is a valid and reliable tool for assessing psychosocial work environment that has been used in many international researches.
• Based on COPSOQ, we created a new tool to determine the impact of ICT on main psychosocial risk.
• With the developed questionnaire, we conducted a Delphy study to determine ICT organizational factors that affect the psychosocial labour risk in information society. A broad group of factors were determined, by expert consensus, to be important at the conclusion of this study. These factors are divided into different groups, such as psychological demands, lack of work content control and general working conditions, lack of social support, and quality of leadership or lack of compensations.

In this paper we present exploratory results about the emerging working risk in information society.

REFERENCES

Benavides, F.G., Gimeno, D., Benach, J. et al. Description of psychosocial risk factors in four companies. Gac Sanit. [online]. May/june 2002, vol.16, no.3 [cited 01 February 2005], p.222-229. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php? . ISSN 0213-9111.

Diamantopoulou A. Quintin A., Health and Safety at Work: a priority for the European Union, speech in European conference and closing event Of the European week for safety and health at work 2001, 28/05/2002. Accesed on 10/01/2005.

EASHW, 2005, European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, accesed on line 31/1/2005 at http://europe.osha.eu.int/topics/cww/.

Karasek R, Theorell T. Healthy work. Stress, productivity, and the reconstruction of working life. New York: Basic Books, 1990.

Schnall P, Landsbergis P, Baker D. Job strain and cardiovascular disease. Annu Rev Public Health 1994;15:381-411.

Swanson NG, Piotrkowski CS, Keita GP, Becker AB (1997). Occupational stress and women’s health. In: Gallant SJ, Keita GP, Royak-Schaler R, eds. Health care for women: psychological, social, and behavioral influences. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, p. 147-159.

Theorell T. Working conditions and health. En: Berkman L, Kawachi I, editors. Social epidemiology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

AUTHOR
Maria Canellopoulou-Bottis

ABSTRACT

In 1998 Iceland passed a bill that gave a biomedical company the right to combine all of the country’s genetic, medical and genealogical information in one database. This bill was the Health Sector Database Act. This project has probably been the largest, in health informatics of this kind, as Iceland’s total population is about 270.000 people. Iceland had in its possession an almost unimaginable medical record: tissue samples of the entire population. The final database would contain a combination of the genealogical database, the genetic database and the medical database, of all past, present and future medical records from the entire population, living and dead.

The project was based at the uniqueness of Iceland’s population: relatively small, almost obsessed with issues of genealogy, in isolation geographically and with little migration-a homogeneous people, whose tissues have been stored with great care since 1915. Scientists have sustained that this is an ideal pool (a ‘good’ population) for genetic research on a great number of diseases, from Alzheimer to cancer, manic depression, asthma, multiple sclerosis cardiopulmonary diseases, metabolic diseases and others.

DeCODE Genetics ‘won’ the contract with the Icelandic state (actually, the bill was drafted by deCODE and deCODE was the only company competent, under the terms of the bill, to contract with Iceland). DeCODE was granted an exclusive license to use the nation’s existing databases (and construct the Health Sector Database) for 12 years with the possibility of renewal. The Icelanders’ consent to the use of their tissue samples and their genetic data by deCODE was just presumed. Only after a later amendment (due to plain outrage) an opt-out clause was inserted in the bill and any Icelander who does not wish her information to be processed by deCODE must file an opting-out form with the Director of Public Health. Genetic information of children or dead persons became instantly part deCODE’s research material.

DeCODE has stated that the database (which has not been concluded yet) is its own intellectual property, as the idea and the whole effort into this project was indeed, deCODE’ s. It therefore claims the right to patent the process to find particular genes and the means to amplify genes. What the Icelanders will receive for their contributions to the research (their genetic and medical information) is free drugs, if these drugs are developed due to deCODE’s research and its collaboration with giant pharmaceutical companies as Hoffman La Roche. But this ‘deal’ does not seem fair enough. The Icelanders most probably should have a share in the profits these companies plan to receive, using, as raw invaluable material, their genes. Perhaps if Icelanders knew that this DNA database has been estimated, as an initial estimate, up to 14 billion dollars, then they would not accept the possibility of free drugs as their only remuneration. Even though, relatively new legal rules have allowed the commodification of genetic data internationally, as new life forms, like the Oncomouse, have been in fact patented, after a long intellectual property law history, which was steadily against patenting life.

Another intellectual property question, aside of patents to genes, is the rights deCODE shall enjoy, as a maker of this database. The rather new sui generis right to a database, after a European Directive, is in effect a perpetual right against extraction and reuse of a substantial (and sometimes, insubstantial) part of a protected database, if this database has been the result of substantial investment (quantitatively or qualitatively). Iceland is not a member of the European Union, but this could happen anytime; one wonders whether it is a coincidence that the first bill on the Icelandic database, drafted by deCODE, contained a definition of the Icelandic database worded verbatim after the Directive’s definition of a protected database (and that subsequent definitions follow this wording very closely).

DeCODE assured Icelanders that their information would remain in the strictest confidence. Actually, a complicated encryption system has been established used to ensure that no employee of deCODE would have the keys to unlock and see whose the particular medical/genetic data are. But many Icelanders do not believe in this anonymity and a report by a Cambridge computer expert on this sensitive point helped intensify their fears. Researchers have also characterized this system, in terms of confidentiality, as ‘a bad joke’. In a rather small place like Iceland, knowing one’s occupation, age, height, sex, residence, in short everything but a name means only that you known the name as well.

It seems, then, that a genetic treasurehouse has become a commercial monopoly. It also seems that this monopoly used Icelanders’ love for genealogy, their positive feelings over the progress of science and their nation’s contribution to scientific evolutions and their assents, for profit. This looks like the perfect example of the breach of Kant’s imperative, use people as ends and never as means. In the meantime, deCODE’s stock has been falling incessantly and resulting into grave losses for the untutored financially Icelanders who bought it.

It follows then that we are in a sort of crossroads. People support science, even if scientific research has had its very dark pages in the past. But whether a private company may exploit a whole nation’s most valuable and most intimate asset in the name of science research, under terms, which clash to the most important international instruments on medical research, this is quite a different question. It demands such a strong justification in terms of humanity welfare that it is almost impossible to develop, given the sad fact that, as things are now, we may have been betrayed by the promise of genetic research to cure illnesses and that the gene myth may have been almost exploded. The story of Iceland and deCODE Genetics is a clear example of how careful we have to be, before we grant dangerous and, in the end, not so promising privileges.

AUTHOR
Barbara Begier

ABSTRACT

Reality shows that software developers are poorly prepared to provide high quality products. According to the report of the British Computer Society [BCS, 2004], the rate of successful software products is 16?34 %. That rate has decreased in the last decade. Software is intended to improve somebody’s work and therefore his/her life. Low quality software is often produced for public funds. A lot of ethical and social issues deal software production and use.

Problems with software quality derive from the economic system, which emphasizes first of all economic figures, like profit, time, number of products released on a market, factors of efficiency at work and productivity, etc. Software factories prefer so called hard methodologies, in other words plan-driven methods. Software designers and programmers work usually under the pressure of time. Software companies do just that what bring them profit. In addition, software products seem to be helpful tools in mcdonaldization of society ? they support activities which are effective, calculative, predictable (repeatable), and allow to manipulate people by offering them self-service methods instead of a true service. Today’s methods work till requirements concern routine situations. If changes occur frequently during a software development and information system is supposed to support problems met in the real world then the system fails or at least falls short of users’ expectations.

The underlying reasons for the great popularization of the plan-driven methods seem to be not only economic ? their fundamental issues come also from education. Academic teachers lecture willingly mathematical background of computer science and technical aspects in software engineering. In general, formalisms are beloved by scientists. Human values are passed over. Students of computer science and software engineering are taught, first of all or even only, hard methodologies, which are based on rigorous plans and technical factors. Students learn techniques of object modeling and design, they create data bases and exercise programming in several languages but they never experience language required to communicate with users. In all educational process teachers and students treat direct and indirect users like a monolithic group ? the homogeneous whole. Quality appears a marginal subject at the university of technology. The attitude shaped at university is then transferred to software companies.

At the same time students work individually at most subjects. Notes are assigned separately to each of them. So they are usually not experienced in a teamwork. Also any academic teacher tries to make his/her individual carrier. Students rarely hear about soft methodologies and techniques, which consist in a constant communication and cooperation with users ? everyday classes are usually held far away from practice.

The described situation may be changed. In this paper there are proposed approaches and methods, which are recommended in software engineering in an academic practice. Students should know principles underlying user-oriented methodologies and develop the required competencies. Software production is a social activity so social impacts require more attention. The suggestion to extend the CMM model is given ? the maturity level of a process of user-developer cooperation is under assessment as an integral part of a maturity of all development process and it is related to mutual relationships between developers and users.

AUTHOR
Caroline E. Wardle, Rachelle D. Hollander and Jolene Kay Jesse

ABSTRACT

Despite the growth and proliferation of information and communication technology (ICT) over the past two decades, women in the U.S. continue to lag far behind men in pursuing computer science (CS) educational opportunities and ICT careers. While women’s achievements have been improving notably in many areas of secondary education and post-secondary education, these achievements have not been realized in CS. The percentages of women involved in CS at all educational levels and in the U.S. ICT workforce are far less than would be expected given women’s representation in the population.

Responses to this situation have generally looked for ways to improve these statistics, particularly at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. We will propose that a more ethically sound approach to increase female participation would be to encourage female involvement in associated, more welcoming fields rather than in computer science and ICT directly. This approach will better satisfy utilitarian criteria, demonstrate respect for persons and cohere with an ethic of care. [Beauchamp, 1994; Rawls, 1971; Tong, 2000]

Research findings on the causes of this persistent gender segregation in CS academic attainment and ICT employment identify both broad socio-cultural factors that influence women’s participation in CS and ICT, as well as factors intrinsic to the teaching and culture of CS. [AAUW, 2000; Camp, 2002; Margolis, 2002; Martin, 1992; Wardle, 2004]

We will examine the potential for increasing the participation of women in computer science and ICT by accepting some recognized and alternative normative and empirical assumptions, and devising new approaches based on these assumptions. The assumptions include the following:

• Women are not selecting computer science as their specialization in either undergraduate or graduate schools to the degree that their intellectual competencies would allow.
• Women’s choices of not selecting computer science are reasonable ones, given the climate and priorities of that field.

Some people might wish to argue that lack of female participation is evidence of lack of intellectual competencies. However, this position is undermined by the strong participation of women in the biological sciences, mathematics and chemistry. As to climate and priorities in computer science, the male-dominated framing of problems and approaches to their examination and solution has often been noted. [Flanagan, 2005, Huff, 1987]

Given these factors, it may be ethically permissible to encourage women to consider specializing in undergraduate or graduate level work in CS, but neither wise nor ethically recommended to encourage strong consideration for that choice. It may be preferable to project some directions in which CS is likely to move, that involve associated fields in which women are more welcome, and to guide and enable women’s participation in those areas. Taking this approach allows counselors and mentors to increase students’ chances of successful educational and career paths, a utilitarian goal. It also expresses honesty, demonstrating respect for persons, and care for their wellbeing.

An alternative route to specialization in CS that involves underlying disciplines in which women are more welcome is assistive technology for the elderly — an integrated system of hardware, software, sensors and communication networks designed to help older adults remain independent as mobility and cognitive impairments lead to functional decline. The underlying ICT disciplines include human-computer interaction (HCI), artificial intelligence (AI) and computational perception and sensing technologies, all areas of study that have traditionally attracted women.

Computer scientists have long embraced Moore’s Law – a 1965 empirical observation by Gordon Moore, that the density of transistors on a semiconductor microchip doubles roughly every 18 to 24 months – as one of the drivers behind the enormous growth in the use and applications of ICT. However today’s conventional chip fabrication methods using CMOS (complementary metal oxide-semiconductor) technology are predicted to reach the limit of Moore’s Law within the coming decade as the physical limits of miniaturization are reached. An emerging technology such as nano-technology is a potential replacement technology for the CMOS transistor. Electronic devices built at the nano-scale level can be packed more densely and can operate far faster than conventional transistors opening up the possibilities for faster and more powerful computers.

Nano-science has underlying disciplines in the biological sciences and multiple application areas that have traditionally attracted women. But nano-scale level devices are at least a decade away from being fully developed. We could be encouraging and training women to enter these new technology areas instead of conventional computer science.

Doing so may provide a wiser and more ethically sound path by which to promote the participation of women in the emerging ICT technologies and related fields of science and engineering, from which they may make indirect or later contributions to computer science.

REFERENCE

AAUW Educational Foundation (2000), Tech-Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age. Report by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, Washington, DC.

Beauchamp, T. L. & Childress, J. F. (1994), Principles of Bio-Medical Ethics, 4th, Edition, Oxford University Press, New York.

Camp, Tracy & Impagliazzo, John (eds) (2002), Inroads (ACM SIGCSE Bulletin), vol.34, no.2.

Flanagan, Mary, Howe, Daniel and Nissenbaum, Helen (2005), Values at Play: Design Tradeoffs in Socially-Oriented Game Design.

Huff, C. and Cooper, J. (1987), Sex Bias in Educational Software: The Effect of Designers’ Stereotypes on the Software they Design, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, vol.17, 519-532.

Margolis, J. & Fisher, A. (2002), Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Martin, C. Dianne & Eric Murchie-Beyma, (eds) (1992), In Search of Gender-Free Paradigms for Computer Science Education, International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), Eugene, Oregon.

Rawls, John (1971), A Theory of Justice, Harvard University Press.

Tong, Rosemarie (2000), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Feminist Ethics. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-ethics. accessed 11.01.04

Wardle, Caroline, Martin, C. Dianne and Clarke, Valerie A. (2004), The Increasing Scarcity of Women in Information Technology is a Social Justice Issue, Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on the Ethical Impacts of Information and Communication Technologies (ETHICOMP), Syros, Greece, 893-903.

AUTHOR
Mike Bowern

ABSTRACT

The problems with electronic voting machines used during the 2000 and 2004 USA presidential and other elections have been widely publicised. As a result of these problems, several organisations of concerned US citizens have been formed to raise public awareness of these problems; and a number of academics have made contributions to the debate about possible solutions. A substantial contribution was made in June 2004 when a Voting, Vote Capture and Vote Counting Symposium was held at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG), which produced a report entitled Electronic Voting Best Practices. The report made a number of recommendations covering the practices which were considered essential for the acceptable and reliable use of electronic voting technology for future elections in the USA, including the, then, upcoming elections in November 2004.

This paper reviews that report and some of the associated events in the USA; and discusses the proposed best practices in the light of experiences of electronic voting in other countries, with particular reference to Australia.

The KSG symposium identified six themes which cover the range of recommended best practices to address the problems of electronic voting. The recommended practices cover:

• what needed to be done immediately (June 2004) to start to address the problems;
• aspects of electronic voting and allied technology;
• aspects of the human element in the election processes;
• technology design standards;
• a wide range of processes to be improved and made transparent; and
• aspects of auditing electronic voting systems.

A strong recommendation from the symposium, and from citizens’ groups, is for the production of a paper record of the electronic ballot, to enable a voter to verify their vote before it is finally committed. The paper discusses this approach to vote verification, in the light of the Australian experience.

It is clear from some of the proposed practices that it is not just electronic voting machines which are a cause for concern. There are also serious flaws in the voter registration processes; in the selection and training of voting officials and polling station support staff; in the operation of polling stations on voting day; and in providing accessibility and support for people with disabilities and/or insufficient English language skills. It appears that the whole election system and associated processes are in need of serious reform, to enable the recommended best practices to be met.

The proposed best practices arose out of evidence collected from the 2000 elections, and from the findings of subsequent investigations, including a bipartisan commission led by ex Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. In the best light, their findings included evidence of a serious lack of transparent processes, especially with respect to electoral officials; in the worst light there were possible corrupt practices involving senior electoral officials, the vendors of voting machines and representatives of the political parties.

One of the concerned citizens’ organisations, the Verified Voting Foundation, organised the TechWatch programme, in which technology professionals volunteered to observe and document the problems which arose at polling stations in the November 2004 elections. As at 14 March 2005 over 40,000 election incidents had been recorded, with nearly 29,000 incidents occurring on Election Day 2004. Of the total number of incidents, only 2,242 (under 6%) of these were identified as “machine problems”. This is a further indication of the need for overall election system reform in the USA.

Other countries do not seem to have such serious problems, for example Brazil, India and Australia can all boast of successful elections using electronic voting machines.

Consider the Australian electoral systems. Like the USA, Australia is a federation of states, and so representatives are elected for state and territory governments as well as the federal government. However, Australia differs from the USA, and the rest of the world, by using a preferential voting method to select its representatives, rather than using the “first past the post” method. Also, in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), and the Australian Senate, the preferential voting method is enhanced with proportional voting, to elect several representatives for each electorate. In addition, Australia has compulsory voting for these elections.

The ACT has successfully used an electronic voting system to conduct part of its Legislative Assembly elections in 2001 and 2004. The system comprises modules for electronic voting, data entry and verification of the paper ballots, and vote counting; to implement proportional and preferential voting functions. The system provides electronic vote verification without the need for a paper record of the ballot.

In spite of the complexity of the Australian models of democracy, the country’s election systems, including an electronic voting system, are highly successful, with very few disputes or complaints from voters.

The paper considers the KSG recommended best practices in the light of the Australian and USA election systems, not only in terms of electronic voting but also in the broader context of the full election system and processes. It will argue that:

• it is possible to meet the recommended best practices;
• vote verification using a printed record of the ballot is not necessary; and
• it is essential to have reliable and transparent processes throughout an election system before the widespread use of electronic voting and voting counting technology can be implemented.

AUTHOR
Paul Sollie

ABSTRACT

This paper is part of initial explorations for a research called “Towards an ethics of Information and Communication Technology (ICT): Controlling Technology Development.” This is part of the broader research project “The ethical aspects of Towards Ultrafast Communication (TUC).” This kind of research aiming at improving means of communication does not seem very risky in itself, let alone to raise any concrete moral dilemmas. However, what about future consequences and applications of TUC? Ethical aspects, impacts and future consequences of this development in particular and technology development in general are often not apparent at the outset. A common feature of complex technologies is that whilst under design, one is ignorant and uncertain of possible applications and consequences of technologies. Consider for example the rise of Internet. ARPANET, internet’s predecessor, designed for secluded academic and military information transfer, has strayed off from its original purpose into a multipurpose worldwide network. The telephone might serve as another example. Alexander Graham Bell designed the telephone for commercial use and stated that he could not imagine that people would ever use this device for private purposes. He could not have been proved more wrong: nowadays, most people have cell-phones and can be contacted 24/7.

A common feature of these technologies is that whilst under design, one is ignorant and uncertain of possible applications of these technologies and therefore of its consequences – I will focus on technologies of which the developments proceeds in a complex matter and is hard to predict, like in the examples mentioned above. The uncertainty of future consequences not only relates to uses of these technologies through time, but also to the impact of technologies on society. Although technology is easily one of the most permeating and consequential features of modern society, surprisingly, an ethics of technology is still in its infancy. Important reasons for this ‘underdevelopment’ of a methodology for morally evaluating technology development are related to its complex, uncertain, dynamic and large-scale character, which seems to resist human control. The (moral) uncertainty surrounding technology development is one of the problems an ethics of technology must tackle. The leading question of my TUC-research on a methodology for evaluating technology development is ‘How to formulate a methodological design for an ethics of technology that is able to deal with the complexity of aspects concerning technology development?’ In this paper I will elaborate on one issue of this larger field of problems, which is known as Collingridge’s Control Dilemma, and its implications for an ethics of technology.

Technology development has always been accompanied by promises of social and human progress, promises of an ever-increasing controlled improvement of society. These promises include, e.g., an increase in quality of life, safety, comfort, autonomy, access to information, but if the development of technologies is in itself beyond control, it is impossible to ascertain these promises. The situation which we have to face concerning the control of technology development has been described by sociologist David Collingridge:

“Attempting to control a technology is difficult, and not rarely impossible, because during its early stages, when it can be controlled, not enough can be known about its harmful social consequences to warrant controlling its development; but by the time these consequences are apparent, control has become costly and slow.” (Collingridge, The Social Control of Technology, 1980: 19)

I argue that Collingridge’s Control Dilemma is not a dilemma after all and that, as a result, I will be able to do justice to both sides of his control problem. On basis of this analysis I discuss some fundamental problems an ethics of technology must deal with. Central to the control ‘dilemma’ is the lack of information for predicting and controlling the ramifications of technology development. This poses serious problems for an ethics of technology, because moral evaluation traditionally proceeds on the basis of reliable information. Besides the fact that information is lacking for controlling future consequences of technology, the challenge for an ethics of technology is complicated by the fact that the progress of technology from design to black-boxed product seems not to evolve according to unequivocal linear causality and is surrounded by different factors of uncertainty, e.g. complexity, dynamics, and intransparance. Moreover, technology development is not apt for moral evaluation in traditional sense, because we are not just under uncertainty of future consequences, impacts, and applications, but we are under moral uncertainty of how to deal with pluralist considerations of technology appraisal. By formulating these problems we come across the limits of traditional ethics. To sum up, this paper will discuss and analyse the question of controlling technology development and its subsequent problems for the quest of an ethics of technology.