AUTHOR
Sara Wilford

ABSTRACT

The prospect of a ‘wired’ world in terms of the delivery of government services is one that creates much debate. This paper examines the privacy implications for such a wide-ranging set of technologies. The work examines how privacy must be considered both prior to and during the implementation of any services that governments wish to provide and discusses how the growth of e-government has been very rapid and yet the success and extent of the services being provided has shown considerable variation of access and provision.

The paper begins by providing an examination of the nature and importance of privacy, providing a philosophical and sociological perspective on the need for privacy within modern western society. There is also a discussion of the issues of compliance and participation and how citizens balance their requirements for privacy with a desire to engage in the benefits offered by a consumer led society. This is followed by an analysis of what privacy means to individuals as a fundamental human right and considers the difficulty of defining privacy due to its subjective nature. The next section considers and analyses the issues of liberty and freedom and how privacy should be considered a key issue that may impact on the quality and quantity of liberty and freedom enjoyed by citizens in western democratic society. Further there is a consideration of the potential for increased surveillance creating a panoptic society of universal scrutiny of citizens. This may be justified as for the purposes of national security which although technologically possible and somewhat justifiable, may negatively impact on individual privacy, liberty and freedom. This means that there is a need to make the distinction between the ability to place society under surveillance and whether it is acceptable to do so.

The paper further focuses on the provision of e-government and examines how the provision of service may vary considerably between departments, governmental bodies and geographical regions. This encompasses discussion of the problems inherent in e-government systems such as access, provision, security and quality of information provided. Further, it is discussed how personal identification and verification needs to be in place to ensure the security of systems and appropriateness of access, but that the implications of such universal identification may adversely affect the civil liberties of citizens. This requires that there is a balance, which ensures that only that information needed for identification is gathered and it is not seen as an opportunity for the collection of other potentially useful data. Alternative uses of personal information gathered in this way may allow government organizations greater scope to utilize personal information for crime prevention or detection purposes thus impacting upon privacy and the privacy expectations of citizens. Recent proposals for Universal identification cards within the UK and USA are discussed in light of this issue. The paper further discusses public policy issues arising from the above debate, which considers the problems of ensuring transparency and accountability whilst also enabling privacy and security. This further discusses the need for built in protections that consider the needs of citizens rather than reactive, bolt on safeguards initialized after problems have occurred.

The paper considers current perceptions of privacy, awareness and importance by using case study examples. This highlights perceptions of privacy and the importance of informed consent to the use of personal information and public surveillance and which impacts on the provision of e-government services. An analysis of case studies in public and private sector organisations has indicated the importance of privacy to individuals and the differences in approach of the two sectors. Consideration of the findings of the case study research has enabled informed analysis of the potential impact of e-government on individuals particularly where citizens are able to conduct their affairs electronically. This analysis reveals whether online and other electronic resources being made available will bring about greater efficiency in the provision of public services and protection of citizens (presuming that such provision is used effectively by consumers) or will become a method of surveillance of the population leading to an erosion of privacy and liberty.

In conclusion, this paper reveals several key findings of the research undertaken and highlights how those findings can help to inform policy makers of the areas of importance to individuals. When undertaking e-government policies, awareness of the perceptions of those impacted by such decisions is shown to be a valuable tool in ensuring that policies reflect citizen needs and concerns as well as government desire for modernization of services. The need to consider the impact of e-government policies particularly where citizen participation is encouraged and expected, requires that not only the mechanics of such a system should be carefully designed, but that the bigger picture of civil liberties, and the importance of privacy to individuals, is seen as an integral part of e-government implementation.

AUTHOR
Janusz Wielki

ABSTRACT

Despite the significant drop of the popularity of the term “the new economy”, no one can say that nothing has changed in the contemporary economy at the end of the twentieth century and that the Internet revolution was just a business fad which faded in the year 2000 with the dot-com crash. In reality just the opposite is true. Although the basic rules of the “old” economy have regained their currency, and the issues as business cycle, cost, quality, inventory, productivity or traditional measures of profitability and economic value are valid, the Internet is fundamentally reshaping businesses and the industries in which they compete. So in fact one can talk about virtualization of the contemporary economy and in this new business reality a set of driving forces has appeared in the last decade and probably the most significant of them are the customers.

In fact the economy at the beginning of twenty first century is the economy ruled by customers, who aggressively seek alternatives, compare offers, and demand the best options. And it is nothing strange or new because it is the nature of customers to permanently demand more value for less cost, more innovation, or more service. Such opportunities are offered by internet technologies so in this virtualized economy they are provided with easier access to information about products and suppliers, reinforcing their bargaining power.

Consequently internet technologies undermine the profitability of industries, so in many sectors influenced by the Internet, average profitability is under pressure. Such a situation is being faced by the recording industry. In this sector quite clear is the impact of two factors: consumers and technology. Their combination leads to the complete redefinition of the foundations of this sector’s functioning and numerous implications result from this fact. The basic goal of this paper is presentation of the complexity of the current situation in the music sector as well as analysis of social and ethical implications of changes which take place in this industry.

The paper is composed of three parts. In the first part of this paper an overview of the situation in the music sector has been given and the most important trends, which can be observed there, have been presented and discussed. Some statistics concerning sales and piracy are provided as well.

Second part of this paper is focused on analysis of issues which have the most significant impact on the new situation in the recorded music sector. Namely the following elements are discussed:

• the separation of an intangible “base” product (i.e. music) from a tangible data carrier, which became a fact with the emergence of the MP3 format,
• rapid growth of the number of consumers with access to a broadband Internet connection,
• easy access of consumers to cheap CD burners,
• large supply of low-priced blank CDs.

The following section of the paper is its core one. In this part of the article the situation in the music sector has been analyzed from social and ethical challenges perspective. Despite the attitude of the representatives of the music industry (mainly the Recording Industry Association of America), for whom everything what currently takes place in this sector is a black-and-white situation (i.e. “music for free” mentality is the reason of the current situation of this sector), the reality is not so simple. In fact the all circumstances are very complex and multidimensional. In this part of the paper the overall situation is analyzed from the perspective of three most important stakeholders:

• the music industry,
• customers
• musicians.

First the position of the music industry on changes taking place in the sector is presented and the methods used by them in order to block dissemination of digital music files (any changes) are analyzed. Also in this part of the paper the conflicting interests within big international corporations and their possible impact on the situation in the music sector is examined (e.g. while Sony Music fights with on-line distribution of MP3 files, Sony is interested in increasing sales of MP3-capable electronics).

Next the perspective of customers is presented. The most important aspect is their stance on sharing MP3 files on-line, including their attitude towards copyrighted material on-line. Social and ethical aspects of downloading digital music files within the corporate IT environment are analyzed as well.

Finally, the perspective of musicians has been analyzed. Although there should be a convergence of opinions between the representatives of the music industry and musicians, in reality very often they are quite different. So various attitudes of musicians towards MP3 files sharing and downloading are presented and analyzed.

In the final part of the paper, the most important conclusions and suggestions are provided.

AUTHOR
Melius Weideman

ABSTRACT

The objective of this research project is to investigate and report on the ethical issues surrounding digital content distribution via search engine results. For the purposes of this project, the traditional definition of digital content distribution is widened to include search engine results.

The literature has shown that search engine users have certain expectations about results appearing on the screen after a search has been executed. First and foremost, results should be relevant to the need expressed in the search query. Secondly, users also expect that these results should appear quickly, and be free from bias. Some studies have shown that these expectations are often not met, and that search engine based resource hunting often leads to user frustration.

The large Internet user base has created an increasing potential for financial gain through marketing. Many authors stated that there is strong commercial motivation for ensuring that web pages appear high up in search engine results. However, the recent commercial failures of dotcoms turning into dotgones are still fresh in the memories of those who have suffered as a result of these failures.

At the same time, recent developments in the search engine world have driven marketers to find alternative funding sources. For example, Yahoo disabled redirection of email from their homepage during 2002. It is believed that this was done to force users to view (and possibly respond to) the advertisements on this homepage. Furthermore, many search engines have been part of mergers and takeovers – Google purchasing the Deja newsgroup archives is only one example. One development resulting from these hard times experienced by search engine companies, which requires ethical scrutiny, is that of paid placement. This refers to a customer paying a fee to the search engine company, to ensure that the website involved is guaranteed listings on customers’ screens. An interesting fact emerging at this point was that paid placements were not offered by Google, often considered to be the leading search engine in the Internet world. Paid inclusion is an alternative which only assures the paying client that his website will be included in the database, but not necessarily that it will appear in the listings.

The literature has also shown that a number of questionable methods exist to increase website ranking. These include spamming, cloaking, doorway pages and link farms. Human users and search engine crawlers have different expectations as to the content they would like to see on a website. They also see the same website in different ways. Confusion appears to reign amongst users regarding the difference between paid an unpaid content. In an empirical experiment, a prominent marketing company found that all the participants considered clearly marked paid content as being spam.

In this research project, the methods used were, firstly, to conduct an exhaustive literature survey on the topic. Some technical issues that surfaced during this process include link analysis, URL submission, paid inclusion and metatag usage. Ethical issues that appear to have a bearing include paid placement, the use of link farms, cloaking, keyword stuffing, and the creation of multitudes of doorway pages. A seminal paper has highlighted some of these issues (Introna & Nissenbaum, 2000).

Secondly, the findings of a preliminary set of experiments have left the impression that all is ethically not well in terms of content delivery to the consumer. It seems that unsolicited propaganda could overshadow true and valuable content in some search engine result pages. It is also possible that some website owners are employing technically superior techniques to achieve high rankings in search engine results. As a result, an exhaustive set of empirical experiments is to be executed to determine the current status quo. An attempt will be made to determine whether or not marketers are forcing biased results onto digital consumers.

Two ethical questions are raised at this point: does the digital consumer using a search engine want relevant answers to his/her questions, or does he/she want to see the websites of technically adept/financially strong website owners? Secondly: the average user is not paying for general search engine queries – does he/she have the right to complain about the quality of the answers? This paper sets out to make a detailed inspection of the situation, and report on it.

In conclusion, it is believed that this proposed research project will add value to the world of the digital information consumer, by exposing potential loopholes in the information society in which we are living. The level of commercial competition for web site ranking will probably increase. In final conclusion, it is believed that payment for casual information searching is a development which will decrease user frustration by increasing information quality of Internet web sites.

AUTHOR
Caroline E. Wardle, C. Dianne Martin and Valerie A. Clarke

ABSTRACT

The well-documented scarcity in the U.S. of women studying computer science (CS) and pursuing careers in information technology (IT) has traditionally been studied from a perspective that supports workforce needs. In 1986 the number of baccalaureates awarded to women in CS peaked at 15,000, representing 36% of the total awarded that year. In spite of much research and a few small programs implemented over the past 10 years, women earned only 10,500 of the CS baccalaureates or 28% of the total, in 2000. Even though there has been strong demand in the U.S. for highly skilled IT professionals over the past two decades, the IT labor market data mirror the data on degree trends in CS. The share of women in these jobs declined from 33% in 1990 to 26% in 2002. This means that society has lost women’s skills and perspectives in the design and development of IT systems prevalent in the world today.

On the basis of existing research, it is possible to identify the types of educational environments that are conducive to attracting girls to the study of CS and potentially into the IT workforce. While it is understandable that we as a society tend to view this scarcity as a societal workforce issue, it is also important to examine female under-representation from an ethical perspective. The question arises as to why we should devote resources to addressing this issue rather than retaining the status quo within the current educational and occupational systems. Whether the focus is on the allocation of resources within the educational system or the allocation of jobs within the employment system, the issue of the under- representation of women in CS and IT can be considered from the philosophical perspective of distributive justice using the four theories identified by Beauchamp and Childress (1994): libertarian, communitarian, utilitarian, and egalitarian.

The libertarian approach argues that human wants are best satisfied by market forces, that any imposed system, or attempt to interfere with the natural order, is a threat to the liberty of the individual. Thus, those who feel that they want CS training and can afford the training are the ones who are able to attain it. Libertarianism assumes that students are the best judge of their own abilities, their own potential, and their own job opportunities, and that they are able to make appropriate decisions. Libertarianism assumes that those who choose training in CS have parents who are able and willing to pay for that training. In terms of education, there are many concerns with the libertarian paradigm, as many educators would question the capacity of young students to make appropriate decisions, and the willingness of many parents to provide the necessary financial support.

The communitarian approach advocates using community-derived standards to determine the “good”, the “right” and the “virtuous” in a specific situation. In relation to CS, this might be seen as describing the approach adopted whereby the governing bodies of educational institutions determine the way students are selected and resources are allocated. Many would argue that the derivation of community standards is open to bias, abuse and exploitation, as those who are in control often argue for the status quo. They manage to impose their views on the community, arguing that their views are most representative of those of the community. Disadvantaged and minority groups are often ignored, while the interests of those in power are promoted.

The utilitarian approach is best described as the greatest good for the greatest number. This may provide the best description of the current position within CS education in schools where the male-dominated curriculum continues to attract males and deter females. Under this paradigm, marginal groups appear to have little to offer to the field, while having a high propensity to consume resources. Girls are seen as having fewer relevant abilities, such as mathematics ability, and less interest in CS than do their male counterparts. Those who benefit from the system are supportive of it, asserting that it provides the greatest good for the greatest number, and therefore provides the most benefit to society as a whole.

Egalitarianism implies that all members of society should have access to the resources of society and should share equally in the burdens of society. Rawls’ work on the principles of social justice (1971) offers a persuasive description of egalitarianism as it articulates the notions of equality, fairness, and opportunity. The egalitarian paradigm provides the basis for arguing that resources should be allocated to enable the maximum development of the potential of all individuals and to ensure that the burdens of providing those opportunities should be equally shared. It can be argued that this paradigm is most compatible with the US philosophy of equality for all, and that it provides a rationale for using existing research findings about the relatively low levels of participation by women in CS and IT to broaden access to these activities.

Using the egalitarian/social justice paradigm as a rationale, we will show that the decreasing numbers of women in IT is a major ethical concern for the individual, as well as for business, education, government and society as a whole. Compelled by a moral imperative, rather than by economics, it becomes clear that fostering IT educational and workplace environments that attract and retain women should be a high national priority. By examining the inhibiting factors identified by research on the IT workforce, as well as strategies that mitigate these factors, we will provide a set of recommendations for addressing this social and ethical problem. One of the greatest challenges facing IT fields in the coming decade is the need to develop and foster an environment that will attract and retain women in IT careers, thus enabling society to benefit from their talents and skills in the design and development of the IT systems of the future.

Note
The views presented in this paper do not necessarily represent the position of the National Science Foundation.

AUTHOR
Ciaran Ward

ABSTRACT

The digital age has created something of a “Big Brother” society in which the proliferation of modern technology has advanced the need for effective legislation to reconcile the right to privacy with the desire for a safer society where illegal or suspect activities can be adequately monitored. CCTV cameras are now omnipresent in the western world – in offices, in shopping malls, on public transport, sports grounds and airports. The monitoring and interception of e-mail/internet usage in the workplace has made it easy for employers to keep close tabs on their employees. In fact modern technology has undeniably rendered access to personal data much easier and cheaper. Facial recognition software used in some security cameras as well as sophisticated biometrics such as DNA databases, eye-scanning and digital fingerprinting have the potential for a “1984” style society.

The advent of the internet has given rise to a plethora of illegal activities both of a civil and criminal nature, notably hacking, online credit card fraud, the spread of viruses and distribution of obscene images. The global nature of the world wide web has internationalised the problem. Following on from the criticism of the US intelligence services after their failure to prevent the events of September 11 2001, the pressure on governments to monitor suspicious activities has increased alarmingly. The problem for governments particularly those in the west is thus striking a balance between effective policing and respect for human rights. In his influential 1994 publication Electronic Eye, Lyon outlines this paradox, pointing out that “surveillance simultaneously represents both a means of social control and a means of ensuring that citizens’ rights are represented”.

The question the law must pose therefore is to what extent is such surveillance intrusive? The flood of emergency legislation introduced by western governments in the wake of September 2001 has come in for much criticism by civil libertarians who in their campaign for a transparent society claim that these events were merely used to justify greater surveillance of the public.

Most western democracies as well as the European Union have implemented privacy and data protection legislation of some description. The latest European directive on privacy (the Directive on privacy and electronic communications, 2002/58/EC) repeals the Directive on Personal Data Protection and Telecom Privacy (97/66/EC) issued a mere five years earlier. The new directive takes into account the explosion of mobile phones and e-mail usage and in theory guarantees confidentiality of communications, but cites certain exceptions – i.e. in the interests of ‘national security… defence, public security and the prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of criminal offences or of unauthorised use of the electronic communication system’. Such exceptions could however be abused by public authorities to encompass a much broader range of circumstances than their intended meaning.

The need to curb “high tec” crime requires a degree of covert surveillance, but when an individual is merely under suspicion there are obvious problems with this approach, as many influential civil liberties groups around the world have pointed out.

Article 8(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights which states “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence” should theoretically act as a safeguard against any unjustified violations of privacy.

It could be argued that civil liberties groups will never be fully content regardless of the compromises privacy law attempts to implement. It seems that in any case privacy will always come at a price. Governments and other public authorities may never come clean about their darkest secrets and will always invent exceptions to the rule to suit their own ends. Civil libertarians claim that public interest exemptions from data protection laws have merely resulted in major violations of privacy. Just how much the public knows is debatable, but one would suspect that this is very little. The degree of surveillance of members of the public is probably much greater than we imagine. Despite the legislation on the subject it seems that the powers that be will always find a way around this.

The question is do the innocent really have nothing to fear? Certain well documented cases would appear to suggest otherwise.

This paper examines the conflict between existing laws on privacy and surveillance and the need for the enforcement of human rights with reference to the vast range of existing literature on the subject, current legislation, case law and initiatives within the UK, the EU and selected jurisdictions – with an emphasis on electronic data and covert surveillance.

AUTHOR
Richard Volkman

ABSTRACT

As illustrated by analogy to the recent scandals in the telecom industry, deontological and utilitarian approaches to computer ethics are unable to serve as good guides to action under circumstances of economic change or uncertainty about values. These circumstances practically define the cultural environment of computing. Indeed, it is a truism in computing that change is the only constant, and this truism challenges the ability of traditional “ethical controls” to regulate behavior in any meaningful way. Principles of good character, on the other hand, do not derive from statements of eternal, universal values; a virtue is a trait of character that is good for the person who has it, where the value of good character derives from the agent’s own commitments. It follows that virtue ethics is not susceptible to rationalizations based on extrinsic rewards made uncertain by a prevailing relativism about values or by a volatile economic environment.

The recent “meltdown” in the telecommunications industry reveals a problem in utilitarian and deontological ethics that finds expression in computing as well as business. While recent business scandals certainly involved a large measure of fraud and other immoral conduct, there is a growing consensus that this will not account for the full scope of the problem. Despite the obvious fact that something went terribly wrong, debate continues among scholars regarding the morality and legality of many of the practices that led to the problems at Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, and others.

That such debate continues is unsurprising, given the way utilitarian and deontological approaches to ethics both depend on evaluating outcomes to assess ethical conduct. (This is obvious for utilitarianism but requires some unpacking for deontology.) When the value or likelihood of a given outcome is uncertain (as in the case of a perceived “new economy”), these accounts cannot guide action. In contrast, evaluations of character do not depend on outcomes, and descriptions of character in terms of virtue have an intelligible meaning that does not depend on the categorical goodness of any particular end. This helps virtue ethics to avoid many of the difficulties associated with applying utilitarian and deontological ethics.

Instead of evaluating outcomes, virtue ethics focuses on character. Character refers to an agent’s overall being, including especially those values, beliefs, projects, commitments, and ways of reacting to the world that explain and justify the agent’s behavior. One’s character stands behind one’s actions, as the core of identity and self; character defines who one is. We rely on traits of character to predict behavior and to thereby justify reliance. Because one’s character forms this relatively stable base for one’s projects and pursuits, any agent will have to take seriously the evaluation of her own character, whatever her particular projects and pursuits might be. The reasons to have a good character are already built-in to those projects and pursuits.

Evaluations of character typically involve claims about the virtues. Virtue terms involve both a descriptive and a normative aspect, such that one cannot understand what the term describes without also understanding its normative implications. Virtue terms need not get their ethical force by asserting that any particular state of affairs is “really” good. Instead, virtues relate to things that are more or less obviously good-for-me (and good-for-you), and they specify a reliable means of achieving these ends. If it is granted that one pursues the end in question, this gives one a reason to manifest the virtue in question. So, the virtues will have a reason-giving force as long as one can confirm that the associated value is of personal value, and there is no reason that relativism or uncertainty about evaluating outcomes should undermine ethical reasoning about character. Utilitarianism and deontology both require that one’s actions be justified in terms of realizing some categorical good. However, to confirm that a given virtue term applies to one, it is enough to acknowledge it as a means to some end that one is actually committed to. What follows are the Socratic dictum, “Know Thyself!” and the Nietzschean imperative, “Become Who You Are!”

Applying this to computing requires a preliminary discussion of the nature of computing. What ends define the commitments of the computer professional? In light of this discussion, we will be in a position to say what a computer professional is, and we can confirm that the traditional virtues of courage, integrity, honesty, and good judgment all apply to the good computer professional. While a complete analysis of the notion of “being a good computer professional” is well beyond the scope of a single paper, even a preliminary sketch is sufficient to show that the practice of computing differs from the practices of the cracker or the info-terrorist or the con-artist, each of whom represent a different sort of failure in being a good computer professional. Having described what it means to be a good computer professional, discovering reasons for ethical (i.e., virtuous) behavior is a simple matter of determining whether one aims to be a good computer professional or a good con-artist, cracker, or info-terrorist. If the answer is not already obvious enough, it turns out that the life of a “good” con-artist, cracker, or info-terrorist is very unlikely to issue in the good life for a human being.

If the actors in the telecom scandals regard themselves as businesspersons and not con-artists, then virtues give them good reason to have behaved differently. If they regard themselves as con-artists, then virtues give reasons to become businesspersons instead. Similarly, those who aspire to be computer professionals have good reason to behave ethically, even in circumstances of radical uncertainty about categorical values and outcomes. Ethical conduct is not an added responsibility of the computer professional that is merely tacked on to what her job is “really” about. Rather, ethics defines the very fabric of the job description and, therefore, what it means to be a good computer professional.