AUTHOR
David Sanford Horner

ABSTRACT

Stories of social, cultural and economic futures underwritten by the latest advances in technology are a familiar trope (Seidensticker, 2006; Selin, 2007). In this paper I will extend my recent work in which I have argued that the only rational response to the claims of ‘futurism’ should be one of profound scepticism (Horner 2005; Horner 2007a; Horner 2007b). It might be said that some claims are better then others, for example, a populist futurism may be easily brushed aside but more serious, evidentially based work surely must be taken more seriously. However, what I hope to show is that the problems that beset forecasting are not simply matters of inadequate technique and poor evidence but that the enterprise is conceptually and logically flawed and this, itself, has important ethical implications. This seems to be a miserable conclusion given that foresight has been presented as a principal means by which we might deal with the threats of uncertain futures. However, to illustrate this argument I analyse in some detail Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is near: when humans transcend biology (2005). The book is striking in the reach and depth of its projections (taking us well beyond Web 2.0!) in envisaging a future in which information technologies have developed exponentially to create the conditions for humanity to transcend its biological limitations. Kurzweil describes this as ‘the Singularity’: “…It’s a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed. Although neither utopian or dystopian, this epoch will transform the concepts that we rely on to give meaning to our lives, from our business models to the cycle of human life, including death itself” (Kurzweil, 2005, p.7). He makes the remarkable claim that: “There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality” (Kurzweil, 2005, p.9). It is important to note that Kurzweil says that this ‘will’ happen; there is not even a cautionary ‘may’ happen. The book is suffused with that sense of historical inevitability famously criticized by Isaiah Berlin (1954) the ethical implication of which is a profound loss of human freedom. What underlies this vision is an idea with a long pedigree that history conforms to natural or (supernatural) laws which in themselves constitute the basis for knowledge about the future states of the world. Kurzweil in The Singularity is Near indeed presents ‘a theory of technological evolution’ as justification of the shape of future human society. In the manner of Karl Marx or Herbert Spencer he rejects a so called linear view of historical development in favour of a vast historical canvas of six historical epochs that are driven, in a law-like manner (‘the law of accelerating returns’), by the exponential growth of information and technology. I argue that this view is flawed in at least two fundamental respects. Firstly in its disregard of the notion of limiting factors which apply even in the case of the growth of science and technology (Barrow, 1999; Edgerton, 2006). And secondly, it mistakes phenomena that may be temporary, local and limited for a metaphysical principle (Seidensticker, 2006, 63 – 79). But the problems raised here are also ethical. The danger of this kind of futurism is that it radically devalues human choice and our collective ability to shape technological futures (Flew, 1967). Kurzweil’s account is remarkable in its blindness to the long history of the failure of technological foresight to deliver on its promises (Cole et al. 1974). I argue the brutal case that social foresight and technological forecasting are essentially fraudulent activities which at best are temporarily delusive but at worst may constitute a waste of valuable human and material resources. Following Edgerton’s (2006) account we need rather an ethics of ‘technology-in-use’ rather than a hypostatization of so called technological laws of development. I conclude more hopefully with a brief indication of where we might look for methods of dealing with uncertainty which do not depend on undependable and indefensible knowledge claims about future states of the world.

REFERENCES

Barrow, J.D., 1999. Impossibility: the limits of science and the science of limits. London: Vantage.

Cole, H.S.D., Freeman, C., Jahoda, M., and Pavitt, K.L.R., 1974. Thinking about the future: a critique of the Limits to Growth. London: Chatto and Windus.

Berlin, I., 1954. Historical inevitability. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Edgerton, D., 2006. The shock of the old: technology and global history since 1900. London: Profile Books.

Flew, A. 1967. Evolutionary Ethics. London: Macmillan.

Horner. D.S., Anticipating ethical challenges: Is there a coming era of nanotechnology? Ethics and Information Technology. 7, 2005, pp. 127 – 138.

Horner, D.S., 2007a. Forecasting Ethics and the Ethics of Forecasting: the case of Nanotechnology. In: T.W. Bynum, K. Murata, and S. Rogerson, eds.Glocalisation: Bridging the Global Nature of Information and Communication Technology and the Local Nature of Human Beings. ETHICOMP 2007, Vol.1. Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan 27 -29 March 2007. Tokyo: Global e-SCM Research Centre, Meiji University, pp. 257-267.

Horner, D.S., 2007b. Digital futures: promising ethics and the ethics of promising. In: L. Hinman et al. eds. Proceedings of CEPE 2007: The 7th International Conference of Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiry. University of San Diego, July 12 – 14, 2007. Enschede, The Netherlands: Center for Telematics and Information Technology, pp. 194-204.

Kurzweil, R., 2005. The singularity is near: when humans transcend biology. London: Duckworth.

Selin, C., 2007. Expectations and emergence of nanotechnology. Science, Technology and Human Values. 32 (2) March, pp. 196 – 220.

Seidensticker, B., 2006. Futurehype: the myths of technology change. San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler.

AUTHOR
Lawrence M. Hinman

ABSTRACT

The development of the World Wide Web has spawned new opportunities for cheating and plagiarism. In this paper, I shall:

• Briefly describe the changes that technology has brought about in this area;
• Examine technological responses to these changes; and
• Suggest ways in which these emerging technological challenges can be met with non-technological responses that are far more effective.

The Technological Shift

In the last two decades, the web has opened up three categories of new opportunities for students who want to plagiarize. First, the web itself is an ever-ready source of material to plagiarize. With drag-and-drop technology, it is incredibly easy for a student to grab a few paragraphs from one source, some pages from another, and assemble them into a marginally coherent whole. On-line encyclopedias, journals, and even personal websites provide limitless possibilities.

Second, lazier students may simply want to get an entire paper from one of the numerous sites that offer already-written term papers. Cheathouse.com, for example, claims to have over 100,000 papers and essays available for purchase. They charge $15 (€10) per month to join. The quality of the essays is very uneven. SchoolSucks.com claims to have over 50,000 and sells them for $10 (€6.75) per page. MyEssays.com promises original (i.e., non-plagiarized) papers with variable pricing, and also provides a venue for students to sell their own papers on-line.

Third, some students may be lazy but demanding: they want their paper to be excellent and to fit the assigned topic perfectly. PerfectTermPapers.com sells custom papers for a wide range of pricing from $7 (€4.73) to $60 (€40.50) per page. These high-end, custom sites still offer a quick turn-around time (for a higher price, of course), and some of them even offer to provide masters theses and doctoral dissertations.

The allure of these sites is the ease and speed with which students can obtain papers. In many cases, they can turn to a term paper site at 10:00 PM, pay for the paper and download and print it, and still get a good night’s sleep before their 9:00 AM class. Such services might have been available earlier, but they were slow and tedious and required almost as much advanced planning as writing the paper itself.

The Technological Response

Just as the spread of computer viruses gave rise to a new industry of anti-virus programs, so too the spread of web-based plagiarism has created new market opportunities to combat this plagiarism. Many teachers and institutions have attempted to meet these new, technologically-based challenges with advanced technological responses of their own. These responses fall into three broad categories.

Initially, individual instructors might do web searches to find the sources from which papers have been plagiarized. This method was tedious and liable to capture only the first category of web-based plagiarism described above.

Second, various software programs have been developed to detect plagiarism, and these are moderately accurate. Many of the companies developing this software have gone out of business, but some alternatives have remained available. WCopyFind (http://plagiarism.phys.virginia.edu/Wsoftware.html), for example, is a relatively simple tool that enhances web searches to find matching passages. WCopyFind is free. Eve2 Plagiarism Detection Software (http://www.canexus.com/) is a program that runs on individual instructor’s computers, and is sold for $30 (€20). AntiCutandPaste.com offers both a regular detection package and a package to detect plagiarism in writing computer code at the same price as the Canexus software.

The third and, in most people’s eyes, most effective and efficient approach has been anti-plagiarism services, most notably TurnItIn.com. No other single product has had such widespread acceptance in the United States market by both institutions and individual instructors. (See, for example, the faculty report on anti-plagiarism software from Claremont McKenna College at http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/writing/Examining%20Anti.htm for a typical assessment of TurnItIn.com) It has been on the market more than ten years, beginning as Plagiarism.org. Part of the secret of their success is that each paper that is sent to them for plagiarism-checking is itself entered into their database, insuring that anyone else that submits that paper (including the same student in a different course) will be detected. Storing the submitted papers has been subject to legal challenge, since it would seem that they are the property of the student. Detailed, color-coded reports are sent back to the instructor on each paper submitted, and institutions are encouraged to purchase institutional memberships that permit all instructors to submit all papers. Pricing is not available on their website; individuals and institutions must request a quote.

Students, of course, are more savvy than most teachers about the limits of such software, and they often resort to software-based countermeasures. Microsoft Word, for example, has long contained an AutoSummarize feature that can be used (with varying amounts of success) to foil plagiarism detection software.

Beyond Technology

Although such technological approaches to plagiarism are often as appealing to administrators and teachers as term paper sites are to students, the emphasis on technological solutions to this problem obscures more basic approaches that lack technological glitz but promise much more pedagogical substance.

The use of services such as TurnItIn.com is the educational equivalent of urine testing of athletes for drugs. It begins with the presupposition of dishonesty. Yet if trust is a fundamental value of the educational process (see the Fundamental Values Project at the Center for Academic Integrity [academicintegrity.org]), such a presupposition automatically contradicts that value. A flourishing academic community can hardly be grounded in such mistrust.

Moreover, the technological attraction of these approaches obscures more fundamental ways of dealing with such problems. If students are asked, over a period of weeks, to submit a topic for a paper, then a one-page summary and initial bibliography, and then receive criticisms and suggestions that shape the rough draft, and then develop a final draft, the need for electronic plagiarism detection disappears. The fact that the problem is technology-based does not mean that the solution must be as well. Perhaps, instead of more effective plagiarism detection technology, we simply need better teaching.

AUTHOR
Mike Healy

ABSTRACT

“No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.” (Mill 2003)

Applied ethics, particularly in the form of business ethics, is often seen as useful in helping to construct a range of private and public policies. The growth in interest in organisations such as the UK’s Institute of Business Ethics and CSREurope as well as the EU’s support for the European Alliance for CSR, are indicative of the extent to which ethics and associated issues are discussed in the commercial arena. Business schools in a range of educational institutions across Europe are increasingly incorporating teaching in business ethics and/or CSR. (Matten, Moon 2004) Developments in ICT have also prompted a sustained interest in computing ethics.

Similarly, diversity and diversity management have developed as key themes for employers during the past decade at both the European Union, member state, and organisational levels as the EU has sought to influence policy by issuing a number of regulations covering diversity. These regulations have been translated into national legislation (eg, the Directive concerning age and employment) which employers are required to observe. A large number of institutions have also adopted diversity training requiring employees to undertake self-paced elearning modules often culminating in an on-line test.

At the same time, many organisations have developed and sought to implement codes of ethics designed to influence and modify the behaviour of their employees as well as devising and publicising corporate social responsibility programmes. There is a significant body of research concerned with the three themes of ethics, corporate social responsibility, and age and employment. However, little has been done to examine the relationship between these categories to examine how policy initiatives have led to material change. This paper seeks to explore the relationship between ethics and diversity in the workplace in the European context by drawing upon primary research undertaken for the mature@eu project, a pan European project concerned with age diversity in the European ICT sector.

The paper opens with a review of some of the ethical arguments supporting diversity by reference to Mill, feminist ethics and contract theory. The paper then examines the extent to which ethics is used to promote diversity within the workplace by focusing on age and employment. A review is made of the reasoning for age diversity advanced by instututions such as the European Union as well as those made by organisations intimately concerned with increasing employment opportunity for more mature workers. The paper also examines the core concepts underpinning the main arguments advanced by a number of governmental and non-governmental organisations, such as the IBE and the European Alliance for CSR, that have arisen to champion ethical considerations within the business community. In doing so, the paper seeks to determine the extent to which ethical theory plays in significant role in these arguments by using the ICT sector as an example.

Age and employment have been selected as themes of study because current demographic changes affect the whole of Europe and the European Commission has attempted to respond to the challenge by initiating a range of ambitious policies. Since the March 2000 Lisbon strategy was launched with its target of full employment by 2010 and its goal to enable social protection systems to weather the impact of ageing, the EU has developed and sought to implement age diversity policies across all member states. At the same time, the EU has vigorously argued for an expansion of ICT.

Evidence is presented that shows there is a contrast between the ethical case for diversity in general and the specific arguments made by governmental and non-governmental institutions to commercial organisations in an effort to widen diversity. Further, the paper contrasts business case argument with the language used to promote diversity within the workplace is in stark contrast to the opening preamble to the EU Charter on Human Rights which comments that “Conscious of its spiritual and moral heritage, the Union is founded on the indivisible, universal values of human dignity, freedom, equality and solidarity; …”(EU 2006). The paper also presents evidence which seems to indicate that the ICT sector, despite significant skills and shortages gaps, continues to persist in holding onto a negative attitude towards mature employees.

It is always difficult in a paper of this nature, limited by reasons of space, to comprehensively cover every particular aspect of a given area of study. The initial purpose of this discussion is to explore of some of those issues that should cause some disquiet among ethicists and those concerned with ethical aspects of policy making at the European, national and local levels for three significant reasons. If it is the need to make a business case rather than a general ethical viewpoint that shapes the direction of work in this area, it will affect research, publication, and access to funding. Secondly, if the business case for diversity proves to be problematic or the priorities of the European economy change, then diversity will cease to be a priority for organisations and diversity policies will be seen as just another set of paper exercises merely requiring the appropriate boxes to be ticked. Finally, by failing to vigorously promote the ethical arguments for diversity, policy makers miss a significant opportunity to make a long lasting convincing case that could directly influence attitudes towards age and employment for generations to come

AUTHOR
Viorel Guliciuc and Emilia Guliciuc

ABSTRACT

In our very new cyber society, the problem of the “limits” and “limitations” of the Human Being has to be refreshed. Here, the term “limit” is used as a common restriction and the term “limitation” is understood as a restriction that cannot be over passed, based on the ideas of the Romanian philosopher Constantin Noica. Humankind has always over passed various limits; but not its limitations, too. For example, during the great geographical discoveries era, advancing more and more toward our western or eastern horizons, we have dismissed the limits of the world as we know the until then, but failed to go beyond the horizons themselves.

We seem to be, once again, in a great discoveries era. Only this time we are exploring the horizons of the Tool and of the Artifact. In the Digital Era, the Internet has a presence, an importance and characteristics that could suggest to the common user (cybercitizen) it is the Tool itself, or at least one of its preferred manifestations. As if we are living in the Tool Turn Era itself.

Or that is the perfect start for a discussion on the relationship between the “limits” and the “limitations” of the Human Being under the collision between the effectiveness and the virtuality in our lives. Here “limitation” should be understood both as “limit” and as “a principle, a quality or a propriety that limits the extent of something”. Our limits are often quantitative and external; instead our limitations seems to engage our qualities and our inner boundaries (against the common perspective where “limitation” can also be understood as “the greatest amount of something that is possible or allowed”).

In fact, the virtual worlds are invading our real worlds, generating a more and more schizophrenic human societies. Such a phenomenon is a real paradox, if we are accepting that the purpose of the Digital Tool is not only to link but also to expand the boundaries of our communities. However, simultaneously, somehow and apparently the Digital Tool is creating limits that cannot be overpassed, both in our living and learning activities.

Somehow, the Digital Era is provoking us to analyze if and how the Tool is becoming the privileged Medium for human everyday interactions. Let us observe and agree that the very appurtenance to an “e.community” (being on Mess, Skype; having a blog, an e-group; reading e-papers, e-journals and so on has become more and more similar to the (effective) normal social existence (activity, life) itself.

In order to have a good focus of this topic, we have to choose a privileged digital tool and a privileged philosophic analysis.

The Internet seems that special tool becoming the mediator of more and more of our personal, professional or social interactions. Our professional development, our skills, our gender identity, our equality and access, our responsibility, our learning environment and habits, our physical and mental health etc. everything, even our virtue, seems to be influenced by or dependent of this digital tool.

The Internet characteristic of being a true social mediator is nowadays so obvious that it has become almost a trivial research topic, even not all of the possible explorations has been classified. For many human societies and many human beings, especially those from the poor countries the very existence and use of the Internet remains a pure virtuality, without any link with the effective everyday survival challenges of the real life. The digital divide seems to send human being towards two more and more different modes of insertion into reality.

However, for the Western and/or Developped World, the digital tool has become a “moral mediator” (L. Magnani): “as a cognitive and moral mediator; it can provide stories, texts, images, combined with sounds, so that the information fosters not only a cognitive, but also an emotional and moral understanding. In this sense, the Internet represents a kind of redistribution of the moral effort through managing objects and information to overcome the poverty and the unsatisfactory character of the options available. (L. Magnani and E.Bardone),

The Internet could be also considered as an artistic mediator because it is reshaping and filtering (controlling) the relations between the artwork creation, the artwork display, the artwork contemplation and the artworks onlooker, challenging our artistic sensibility (ViGuera).

Even more, it is may be the perfect time to consider the Internet, as if it has become a real “values mediator” and/or a “creativity mediator”.

As “tool”, Internet itself has also to be analyzed as “limit” and/or as “limitation” of the Human Being (humankind, cybersociety etc.). It engages directly the theme: of the abdication from our responsibilities.

Concerning the appropriated philosophical analysis, a good starting point could be Heidegger’s concept of Gestell, understood as the determining factor of our time. Das Gestell implies simultaneously a frame of mind, a way of conceptualizing phenomena and a theory about what it means to have knowledge of a primary material reality. The negative heideggerian perspective is much more appropriate to a debate that the perspective of John Dewey, because it forces us to go beyond an understanding of the Tool somehow antique.

If the existence and use of the Tool seems to confess both the characteristics of the “limit” and those of the “limitation”, we have more and more the tendency to consider the Tool (and especially the Internet) as a “limitation”. Or this fact is major affecting our perception and consciousness of the reality itself. The explanation of this fact seems to be related to the universal generic presupposition we make considering the very identity and characteristics of the Net, despite its and ours universal non generic nature.

AUTHOR
Frances S. Grodzinsky and Herman T. Tavani

ABSTRACT

This paper expands upon an earlier work (Grodzinsky and Tavani, 2005) in which we analyzed the implications of the Verizon v RIAA case for P2P Networks vis-à-vis concerns affecting personal privacy and intellectual property. In the present study, we revisit this case by analyzing the privacy implications in light of the theory of privacy as contextual integrity (Nissenbaum, 2004). We then analyze some implications for intellectual property by drawing some analogies from the ruling in the MGM Studios v. Grokster case, which, among other things, demonstrates that the debate over sharing copyrighted material in P2P systems has not been limited to copyrighted music files. In particular, we question whether the Verizon and Grokster cases advance the interests of copyright owners at the expense of preserving privacy for individual users? We also question whether the rulings in these two cases threaten new technologies in order to advance the interest of copyright owners?

We begin by providing some background information in the Verizon and MGM cases, including the timeline in each. Whereas the appeals process in the Verizon case can arguably be interpreted as favoring the privacy rights of individual users, we believe that the US Supreme Court in the MGM appeals tended to side with property right holders. However, we also show how the Court’s ruling does not necessarily threaten innovative technologies such as P2P systems, despite the efforts of some property right holders to eliminate P2P systems altogether.

These cases demonstrate that there are ethical challenges that affect privacy and property. The conflict between privacy and property rights in cyberspace can be understood as a tension involving “access and control” (Tavani, 2004, 2007). Whereas property-rights advocates argue for greater control over information they view to be proprietary (thereby restricting access to that information by ordinary persons), privacy advocates argue for individuals having greater control over their own personal information (thus restricting access to that information by entrepreneurs). In examining property-related interests in these two cases, we consider three newer models for distributing digital media: iTunes, On Demand Distribution (OD2), and Streaming media. We examine whether any of these models, as well as an earlier model advanced by Litman (2003), can help us to resolve property disputes while at the same time preserving individual freedom in cyberspace, including personal privacy. In addition, our discussion of property rights will include an examination of the implications of Digital Rights Management (DRM) for personal privacy, as guaranteed by the fair use clause of the Copyright Act of 1976. We will show how DRM has become an obstacle to private use because it limits the user’s freedom, by allowing private interests to define the parameters of the law.

We then show why a context-based theory of privacy such Nissenabaum’s can help us to understand the issues at stake for individual privacy in this debate. A central tenet of her theory is that there are “no arenas of life not governed by norms of information flow” – i.e., no information or spheres of life for which “anything goes.” As Nissenbaum (2004, 128) states: “Almost everything – things that we do, events that occur, transactions that take place – happens in a context…” In her scheme, contexts include “spheres of life” such as education, politics, the marketplace, and so forth. Two core principles of Nissenbaum’s framework are:

the activities people engage in take place in a “plurality of realms” (i.e., spheres or contexts);
each realm has a distinct set of norms that govern its aspects.

These norms both shape and limit or restrict our roles, behavior, and expectations by governing the flow of personal information in a given context. Nissenbaum’s theory requires that the gathering and distribution of information must satisfy norms that (a) are appropriate to a particular context, and (b) govern the distribution of information for that context. Thus, there are two distinct types of norms:

Norms of Appropriateness, which determine whether a given type of personal information is either appropriate or inappropriate to divulge within a particular context.
Norms of Distribution, which restrict the flow of information within and across contexts.

In Nissenbaum’s scheme, a violation of privacy occurs when either norms of distribution or norms of appropriateness have been “breached.” Both types of norms must be “respected” to maintain the contextual integrity of the flow of personal information. As in the case of Moor’s privacy theory, which appeals to the notion of a “situation” (Moor, 2004), Nissenbaum’s theory is context-based. Both theories show why it is mainly the nature of the context in which information flows, not the nature of the information itself that determines whether normative protection is needed. Rather than focusing on the nature of the information included in a P2P situation – i.e., asking whether or not it should be viewed as private – we can ask whether P2P situations or contexts (in general) deserve protection as “normatively private situations” (Moor) or contexts (Nissenbaum).

Appealing primarily to Nissenbaum’s theory of privacy as contextual integrity, we will argue that it is inappropriate for the RIAA to have access to personal information that belongs to a P2P context. We conclude by showing that if we accept Nissenbaum’s context-based approach to the controversy, in conjunction with one or more of the distribution models, that we also examine, we can both protect privacy interests of individuals in P2P systems and help ensure that property owners’ interests are also reasonably preserved.

REFERENCES

DeCew, J. (1997) In Pursuit of Privacy: Law, Ethics, and the Rise of Technology. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.

Grodzinsky, F.S., and Bottis, M.C. (2007) “Private Use as Fair Use: Is it Fair?” Computers and Society, Vol. 37, No. 4, 11-24.

Grodzinsky, F. S., and Tavani, H. T. (2005) “P2P Networks and the Verizon v. RIAA Case: Implications for Personal Privacy and Intellectual Property,” Ethics and Information Technology, Vol. 7, No. 4, 243-250.

Litman, J. (2003) “Ethical Disobedience,” Ethics and Information Technology, Vol. 5, No. 4, 2003, pp. 217-223.

Moor, J. H. (2004) “Towards a Theory of Privacy for the Information Age.” In R.A. Spinello and H. T. Tavani, eds. Readings in CyberEthics. 2nd ed. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett, 2004, 407-417.

Nissenbaum, H. (2004). “Privacy as Contextual Integrity,” Washington Law Review, Vol. 79, No. 1, pp. 119-157.

Rachels, J. (1995) “Why Privacy Is Important.” In D.G. Johnson and H. Nissenbaum, eds. Computing, Ethics and Social Values. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 351-357.

Spinello, R.A. (2004) “A Moral Analysis of the ‘RIAA v Verizon’ Case,” Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, Vol. 4, No. 2, 203-215.

Spinello, R. A. “Intellectual Property: Legal and Moral Challenges of Online File Sharing.” In K. E. Himma and H. T. Tavani, eds. The Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 553-570.

Tavani, H. T. (2004, 2007) Ethics and Technology: Ethical Issues in an Age of Information and Communication Technology. Second Edition, 2007. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.

Tavani, H. T. (2008) “Information Ethics: Concepts, Theories, and Controversies.” In K. E. Himma and H. T. Tavani, eds. The Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 131-164.

Zimmer, M. (2005). “Surveillance, Privacy and the Ethics of Vehicle Safety Communications,” Ethics and Information Technology, Vol. 7, No. 4, 201-210.

AUTHOR
Frances S. Grodzinsky, Stephen Lilley and Andra Gumbus

ABSTRACT

As Internet use pervades our personal and professional lives, organizations have become increasingly concerned about employee use of the Internet for personal reasons while at work. Managers have responded by restricting or limiting Internet use, and monitoring Internet and email communication. While there may be legitimate organizational functions such as performance appraisal and/or security that are served by restricted use and monitoring, poorly designed and communicated practices can have negative effects on morale and productivity. Monitoring often erodes trust and may be considered an invasion of privacy.

The research question addressed in this study is whether social context plays a role in subjects’ assessment of restricted use and surveillance. More specifically, we address whether students accept or reject surveillance with the same frequency for university and work settings. What principles do they call upon when justifying or condemning surveillance in these two environments? By comparing students’ thinking regarding college and the workplace, we have teased out important variables of our subjects’ ethical reasoning regarding restricted use and monitoring.

The study is relevant for policy and theory. From a practical and policy making perspective the study can aid university administrators in considering surveillance. Should they follow the model from the business world? This study provides the student perspective and can give valuable insight to policy makers from the student point of view. With regard to theory, there may be a tendency to conceptualize computer surveillance comprehensively. This study suggests that for users, the social context matters when accepting or rejecting surveillance.

A total of 185 students participated in the survey that was used to assess the main hypothesis that attitudes and reported usage of the Internet differed in two social contexts: the university and the workplace. The participants included 160 undergraduates from an American university campus and 25 graduate students from its Luxembourg campus. Approximately one quarter of the respondents were drawn from computer science courses and three quarters from business courses. In the first section of the questionnaire, students were instructed to reflect and report on their attitudes toward restricted use of the Internet, and toward monitoring their computer usage in the university setting. The same or similar questions and statements were repeated in the second section of the questionnaire, but respondents were instructed to answer in regard to the workplace. The main hypothesis was assessed item by item by comparing the responses in the first section (university context) with those in the second section (work context). In addition, respondents received a total score for all the items pertaining to external control (e.g., monitoring, restricting use) and internal (self) control (e.g., not visiting pornography sites, not using a computer for illegal activity). In each section, the hypothesis was also tested more comprehensively by comparing the totals from the corresponding university and work indices.

The questionnaire consisted of 26 closed-ended questions and 6 open-ended questions. The closed-ended questions either utilized a checking system (for example: Check all that apply to you: ____I do not use work property for illegal activities) or a yes-no response set (for example: Is monitoring Internet usage unethical? Yes ____ No ____). The open-ended questions prompted respondents to provide a rationale for a particular stand by means of a follow-up to the yes-no selection: If yes, WHY? If no, WHY NOT?

The results of the survey supported the hypothesis that attitudes and reported usage of the Internet differed in two social contexts: the university and the workplace. The emergence of important ethical issues of autonomy, privacy and property that appeared in respondents’ answers confirmed this view. Our analysis will examine how these ethical issues were used as a rationale that explained why monitoring in the workplace was considered more acceptable than at the university. We conclude by discussing the ethical and policy implications for both business and education.

REFERENCES

Introna, Lucas.(2001) Workplace Surveillance, Privacy and Distributive Justice. Readings in Cyberethics, eds, Spinello and Tavani, Jones and Bartlett, 418-429..

Peterson, Dane K. Computer ethics: the influence of guidelines and universal moral beliefs. Information Technology & People.(2002) West Linn:. Vol 15, Issue 4. 346 – 362.

Soat, J. Spamming the globe, surfing at work. Information Week. Manhasset: May 16, 2005. Iss 1039. 76.

Thibodeau, Patrick. Employer snooping measure nears vote. Computerworld, 00104841, Sep 11, 2000, Vol 34, Issue 37.

Urbaczewski, Andrew and Jessup, Leonard M. ( 2002) Does electronic monitoring of employee internet usage work? Communications of the ACM, Vol 45 issue 1. 80 – 84, Jan.

http://it.sacredheart.edu/webservices/policies/privacy/index.asp accessed 12/18/04.