Ethical analysis report

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Length:

Minimum 1500 words
Maximum 2000 words

Instructions


Choose one ethical issue arising from the use of ICT that has been reported in the press in the last one year, and discuss it in depth. Checkout news sites below for additional ideas (choose a topic from them):

http://www.wired.com/

http://slashdot.org/stories

http://www.smh.com.au/technology

Show why or how the technology creates or contributes to the problem. Produce an article, discussing both sides of the issue (pros and cons) drawing on both technical and philosophical literature. In addition, argue for your own view of the matter, giving your reasons for your point of view and showing why you believe that they are better than opposing views.

You will be assessed on your ability to reason, analyse and present cogent argument for the particular case. You should outline the main statement you wish to make about your chosen ethical issue along with your reasons and others’ objections to it. You may use any appropriate technique to set out the basic structure of your article.

You are required to submit the following:


A comprehensive and coherent article containing your critical analysis of the ICT related ethical issue.

Your article should present the following:

- the main point(s) of the issue (What is an ethical issue in the selected topic. Ex: honesty, integrity, trust, harm, duty, professionalism, privacy, competence, and so on.)
- the pros and cons for the main point(s) (your reasons and objections as well as those of others) including a critique of the effectiveness of the arguments presented.

- conclusions logically drawn from the analysis presented.

- the ethics technique worksheet you used to form the basis of your analysis. [Use the technique described in the following reading: Simpson, R. et. al. (2003). Doing ethics: A universal technique in an accessibility context. AJIS, 10(2), 127-133. The article is also available from http://journal.acs.org.au/index.php/ajis/article/view/159/141

Referencing

All sources of information must be appropriately referenced using the APA style

Note:

- I have attached the Template.pdf file which is the ethics technique (DET) for setting the structure of this report as well as the ExplanationForTemplate.docx file which will explain more details and 1 small sample for it.

- I also attached the AssignmentSample.pdf which is the complete sample, you should do the report by combining the format of this sample and answer the questions in DET technique.

- The process to do the report is you choose the topic from those links above which reflect the ethical issues in ICT, then point out what is that issues (honesty, integrity, trust, harm, duty, professionalism, privacy, competence, and so on.), choose the suitable ethical theory: Deontology, Relativism, Consequentialism, Categorical Imperative (Kant’s theory).

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What is the DET? • The Doing Ethics Technique (DET) is a procedural technique for analysing ethical scenarios. • Consists of 8 logical steps. ▫ Analyses a single scenario. ▫ Theoretically independent. ▫ Doesn’t guarantee the best solution, but should result in a good one. Simpson, C. R., Nevile, L., & Burmeister, O. K. (2003). Doing ethics: A universal technique in an accessibility context. Australian Journal of Information Systems, 10(2), 127-133. The Doing Ethics Technique What’s going on? Which option is best – and why? What options are there? What are the facts? What are the issues? Ethical solution What can be done about it? Who is affected? What are the ethical issues and implications? Questions in detail Q1. What’s going on? ▫ A synopsis of the case under analysis. All the major points of the case should be touched on. ▫ Consider that you’re describing the case to someone who knows nothing about it, and who only wants an executive summary. Questions in detail Q2. What are the facts? ▫ A descriptive list of ALL the known facts of the case, and also what one might reasonably consider to be possibilities. ▫ All the facts listed must be supported by evidence. ▫ If you wish, you may assign a credibility weighting to each fact. Questions in detail Q3. What are the issues? ▫ A comprehensive list of ALL the issues raised in the case, including:  Ethical issues  Non-ethical issues (social, legal, and so on) ▫ In Q5 we extract the ethical issues listed here. If an ethical issue isn’t listed here, you can’t list it at Q5. Questions in detail Q4. Who is affected? ▫ A comprehensive list of ALL the entities affected by the case (the stakeholders). ▫ Do not restrict yourself to only those stakeholders listed in the case. Consider who/what else might reasonably be affected. ▫ Also include a discussion about how each stakeholder is affected. ▫ You must support these claims with credible evidence. Questions in detail Q5. What are the ethical issues and implications? ▫ Extract only the ethical issues from Q3. ▫ Discuss:  the ethical issues in terms of classical ethical theory or the ACS Code of Conduct; and  the implications of each issue as it affects each stakeholder, relevant industry and on the community in general ▫ You must support your claims with credible evidence. Questions in detail Q6. What can be done about it? ▫ A descriptive idea of what can be done to resolve the case, whether those ideas are practical, possible, or not. ▫ Come up with at least four (4) alternatives. Each alternative must be different. ▫ Be creative. The most obvious courses of action are not the only ones. Questions in detail Q7. What are the options? ▫ A detailed descriptive list of all the possible options that might be available to resolve the case, based on your response to Q6. ▫ It’s possible that some options will result in negative consequences for some, so describe the positive & negative outcomes for each stakeholder. ▫ You must list & describe at least three (3) different alternative options. Questions in detail Q8. Which option is best, and why? ▫ Assess which of the options at Q7 is best. ▫ You are recommending one or more options from Q7, so give valid, reasoned arguments for choosing your recommended option(s). ▫ Give valid, reasoned arguments for eliminating the ‘unsuccessful’ options. ▫ Add your own intellectual property as an ICT professional. ▫ Use a fortiori to determine the best option. What is an ethical issue? • An ethical issue is one which relates to morality. Examples: honesty, integrity, trust, harm, duty, professionalism, privacy, competence, and so on. • A non-ethical issue is one which relates to social, economic, legal, physical, practical, scientific, or other issues – anything except issues of morality. • Don’t get them confused! What is an ethical issue? • • • • • • • Answer every question in order. Use headings for each question. Use complete English sentences. Avoid bulleted lists (like this one) where possible. Fully explain everything, except common knowledge. If you make a claim, provide evidence to support it. Each DET question is standalone. The fact that you’ve given information in response to one question does not relieve you of the necessity to give it again for a later question. An example case study Ben • Ben is a software developer working for a major international software corporation. • He is tasked with developing several modules for a large and complex software product that will be sold to millions of people around the world. • With the official product release date looming, he is under pressure to submit his modules for testing in order to meet the development schedule. • Due to earlier modules taking longer than expected, he realises that he won’t be able to complete the last module on time, so does not inform his Manager and submits it without any code in it, knowing full-well that the test engineers will log it as a bug and return it to him to be fixed, at which time he plans to develop the module properly. • He believes that doing so will not adversely affect the end product’s quality or delivery date. Analysing Ben’s case Q1. What’s going on? 1. Ben is a software developer for a major international software corporation. He is working on a product that will be sold to millions of people worldwide. 2. He is under pressure to complete his part of the work and submit it for testing. Due to earlier tasks taking longer than expected, he knows he won’t be able to finish on time, so rather than advise his manager, he submits an incomplete software module to avoid missing an important deadline. 3. Ben knows that he’ll be able to complete the module when the testers return it for bug fixing, something he believes won’t adversely impact the product quality or schedule. Analysing Ben’s case Q2. What are the facts? 1. Ben is a software developer working for a major international software corporation. 2. He is developing several modules for a large and complex software product. 3. The product will be sold to millions of people around the world. 4. The official product release date looming. 5. Ben is under pressure to submit his modules for testing in order to meet the development schedule. 6. Due to earlier modules taking longer than expected, Ben realises that he won’t be able to complete the last module on time. 7. He submits the module without any code in it. 8. He knows that the test engineers will log it as a bug and return it to him for remediation. 9. When that happens, he plans to develop the module properly. 10. He believes that doing so will not adversely affect the end product’s quality or delivery date. Analysing Ben’s case Q3. What are the issues? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. From the case, there is no evidence that the pressure Ben was under was anything other than the normal pressure of meeting an impending deadline. When Ben realised he was not going to meet the deadline, he could have acted with integrity and advised his manager, who may then have advised him about the proper course of action. Instead, he dishonestly pretended his module was complete and submitted it anyway. He had a duty to his manager, the test team and to his company to perform his tasks with professionalism, but rather, chose to use them as a means to an end. Regardless of whether his actions is discovered, he may lose trust in the eyes of his manager and his peers. Ben’s actions may well have increased the overall project cost by forcing an unnecessary bug fix cycle, as well as affecting his own reputation due to his increased bug count. He did not appear to consider the possibility that the tester may do exactly what he did, potentially resulting in a defective product being shipped. In the event that the ‘bug’ does slip through into a production release, potentially millions of users will be affected in unknown ways. This potentially may result in law suits filed for negligent and incompetence, with the by-product being additional costs and lack of market trust for his employer. Analysing Ben’s case Q4. Who is affected? ▫ The main stakeholders in this case are Ben, his manager and the test team. I. Ben is affected because he is the one who has breached professional and ethical standards. If no-one finds out about it, he will benefit by being seen as a competent developer, albeit having a bug statistic on his professional record. Either way, Ben is still affected by the knowledge that he has done the wrong thing and tricked his employer and his teammates. II. If his action is discovered, he may face disciplinary action by his employer, possibly resulting in termination, which may then affect his family. Certainly he will lose credibility, trust and professional standing in the eyes of his employer and peers. If he is a member of the ACS, he also risks expulsion. III. Regardless of whether Ben’s action is discovered, Ben’s manager may also suffer harm as he is ultimately responsible for the developers under his control, and in many companies bug statistics directly impact a manager’s performance review. If discovered, the manager will also be harmed by the dismay he will feel at having been treated with disrespect. IV. The test team has been impacted by the extra workload imposed by additional testing and documentation on a known faulty module. They too may also feel disrespected by Ben’s deception and disrespect. Analysing Ben’s case Q4. Who is affected? (...cont) ▫ Other stakeholders include Ben’s employer, the end-users and the supply chain partners. I. Ben’s employer is affected by additional development costs and the potential loss of public confidence if the bug gets through to production. Litigation costs can be added to the list of undesirable affects in such a case. If the fault is resolved prior to release, the employer will (presumably) enjoy a healthy profit from the sales of the software and the benefits associated with a sound and well-received product. II. The end users (and those whose data are stored by the software) may be adversely impacted, although specifically how and to what degree is unknown at this time. If a sound product is shipped, they will enjoy the benefits associated with their new purchase. III. If used, supply chain partners may well be adversely affected if the bug goes unnoticed, as they have to deal with customer complaints about the faulty software and may suffer financially as a result of having to issue refunds. If the bug is resolved prior to release, they too will enjoy the benefits of successful sales. Analysing Ben’s case Q5. What are the ethical issues? ▫ Many ethical issues are raised by this case. 1. Ben failed to act with honesty and integrity by covertly submitting known faulty software. His competence and professionalism are in question for the same reasons and his lack of respect for other stakeholders is evident by his failure to advise anyone of his action. 2. Ben’s action will certainly cost him respect in the eyes of his employer and his peers and may cause a lack of market trust for his employer. In conclusion, Ben did not meet his duty to his employer and attempted to avoid responsibility for his failures. Can’t include these here because they weren’t mentioned at Q3. Analysing Ben’s case Q6. What can be done about it? Since the scenario has already occurred and presuming testing is not yet complete, several options exist for Ben. 1. He could do nothing and hope his plan will work out in his favour. 2. He could secretly confide in the tester and ask that they delay testing his module so he can finish it without anyone else knowing about it. 3. He could tell his manager what he’s done and accept whatever remedies are forthcoming. 4. He could tell his manager what he’s done and then offer to work nights and weekends to write the code. 5. He could resign before anyone finds out. Analysing Ben’s case Q7. What are the options? 1. He could do nothing and hope his plan will work out in his favour. Assuming his action went undetected, this would benefit Ben as he would escape any negative consequences of not having finished his code on time. He will be able to finish his code without anyone ever knowing about it. Either way, he would certainly have to live with the knowledge of his deception. If the faulty module somehow slips through to production, his action will almost certainly be discovered and the consequences may be dire for a number of stakeholders. 2. He could secretly confide in the tester and ask that they delay testing his module so he can finish it without anyone else knowing about it. This option includes all the consequences of the preceding option, but compounds the act by enlisting another person to aid on the cover-up. As a result, two people are now involved and both may suffer consequences if the original act is discovered. 3. He could tell his manager what he’s done and accept whatever remedies are forthcoming. This option is the most honest as it does not seek to deceive and it eliminates the possibility that the faulty module will progress through to production. Ben may suffer some form of punishment from the company’s management, not to mention a lowering in the degree of trust given by his manager, however, these are likely to be of lesser degree than either of the other two options presented above. Analysing Ben’s case Q7. What are the options? (...cont) 4. He could tell his manager what he’s done and then offer to work nights and weekends to write the code. This option includes all the consequences of the preceding option , however, it offers a considered solution to the problem and may have the beneficial effect of serving as a self-imposed punishment which may preclude any punishment likely to have been meted out by his Manager. The upside is that the faulty module will be completed with no adverse effects on the production system or any other stakeholders. That said, there may be some small financial cost to the company. 5. He could resign before anyone finds out. This option may be considered by many to be the coward’s way out. Ben might think that this is a good option and it’s reasonable to suspect that his motivation would be to escape embarrassment and punishment rather than escaping detection. He may well achieve that positive end, but the defective module will eventually be discovered and he will be blamed for it. Almost certainly he will not receive a glowing reference and if significant costs are incurred by the company as a result of his act, he may eventually face legal remedies. Analysing Ben’s case Q8. Which option is best and why? ❑ Option 1 is purely egoistic, and by virtue of its deceptive nature, is unethical from the perspective of deontological , social contract and virtue ethics. Additionally, if Ben’s action is discovered, consequentialists would likely agree that the negative consequences of such an act outweigh any benefit Ben may gain. ❑ Option 2 is similarly deceptive, but also incites another person to join in the deception, thus adversely impacting that person as well. Therefore, as this option is as unethical as Option 1, it too is unacceptable. ❑ Although the most ethical course of action would have been for Ben to advise his manager before deceptively submitting the incomplete module, the next best thing would be Option 3, to tell his manager what he’s done and accept whatever remedies are forthcoming. This is an honourable solution which will certainly prevent high-cost consequences in the long term. It’s reasonable to assume that most ethical theories would support this option, even egoism, because any negative consequence to Ben would likely be lesser and short-lived. From the perspective of virtue ethics, it clearly demonstrates good character. Analysing Ben’s case Q8. Which option is best and why? (...cont) ❑ Option 5 is simply out of the question as a solution because the decision to take it would be based purely on egoistic hedonism. I would argue, however, that as the negative consequences may prove significant and long-lived, the perceived egoistic benefit would not be realised in the long term and thus would not ultimately satisfy the egoistic aim. A Kantian approach would condemn such an option because of the impartiality and universality rules. This option also fails to live up to the ideals of the ACS Code of Ethics, but regardless, it does not ultimately solve the problem for any stakeholder. ❑ The best option for everyone concerned therefore, is Option 4. Ben should tell his manager what he’s done and then offer to work nights and weekends to write the code. This option is the most honest and virtuous and it offers his manager an effective and achievable way to solve the problem of the faulty module. It appears to meet the tenets of almost the most significant ethical theories; utilitarian, deontological, contract and virtue. ITC 331- Ethics and Professional Practice Assignment 2 ITC 331- Ethics and Professional Practice “Facebook Tells people Where You Are” Facebook is a free social networking service that lunched in February 2004 has over one billion active users by September 2012. It lets a user to create profile and add others as a friend and share photos, messages and other information’s. (“Facebook,” n.d.) Since the lunch of the Facebook it has raised many privacy issues. As the networking site keep introducing new features to keep them up more interesting and lucrative new privacy issues are arising as well. One of their new feature is “Places”. It is a feature that allows users to share their physical locations with their Facebook friends. It also lets them to identify friend’s locations and visited places weather they have visited or not. Wherever they go they can use ‘check in’ options which tells the location they have checked in as well as they can tag their friends which shows who they have checked in with. Even though, if they do not check in a place with a friend they can still tag them which shows they are with that friends. (Fowler, 2010) Moreover, users can look through nearby venues, markets, restaurants, shops etc to find out what other friends are around. This features raised a great privacy concern to many organisations and individuals as it can be a great threat to individual’s security as well as a great concern of individual’s privacy. (Kiss, 2010) As any user can tag any of their friends and share their location with other friends on Facebook without tagged users consent. This feature may jeopardize the tagged persons privacy as well as security. Moreover, they do not even have to be physically with the friend to be tagged which is another huge issue of the feature. This can be used to embarrass or harm ones good reputations. Even though, users agreed to the Facebook policy and lawfully they are not doing anything illegal, but it is very unethical as when people lose their privacy in the society and sometimes exposed their private life to others that they do not want to be seen by others. On the other hand, many advertising companies are using the shared data without users consent which are being collected from Facebook and those data has been using in advertisement purposes. Another issue is the same data are being used to monitor user’s activities by individuals and by organisations. Even though, Facebook claims that the default setting of the feature is ‘friend only’ which means the information will be shared only with the friends by default. Users can remove the tag later on if they do not want to share the information. So, they have certain controls over the feature. However, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Centre and the American Civil Liberties Union of ITC 331- Ethics and Professional Practice Northern California said the control of the privacy settings of the feature is not enough to minimize risks and privacy concerns. They also stated Facebook should provide a clear privacy settings of “don’t allow” option when a friend first tag another friend rather than allowing them to tag in the first place and later remove the tag. (Fowler, 2010) This feature is directly or indirectly bringing harm to users which have impact on society as well. Before analysing the ethical issues and implications, it is important to define what privacy is and how it could be violated? “Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively”. Even though, it may varies culture to culture but in general it is ones right to disclose themselves from others what they think its personal and would be defended if shared. It is a choice of sharing, storing and a way of leading that will not worry others life. ("Privacy", 2011) So, when someone’s personal information’s, life style or certain information that they would not want to be shared but somehow reveals by someone to others or something that reveals without their consent is violation of one’s privacy. According to Deontology, “It is the study of duties and rights. It focuses on the fundamental of human rights and the various entities responsibilities towards these rights: right to know, right to privacy and right to property” (Tavani, 2007). When Facebook shares user’s locations and places they have visited, it is actually violating user’s privacy even though users agreed on some extent. User’s information’s are their property and that cannot be shared with third party without their consent. According to utilitarianism, “It is when the action benefits all parties such as customer and company plus the action is right if the benefit outweigh the overall cost involved” (Tavani, 2007). Even though the feature benefits both companies and users but it is still a concern of privacy issue for many others. If most of the people are happy with the action and according to utilitarianism the action is right, however, lack of knowledge on the consequences of the action and desire of getting few benefits are few reasons behind their acceptance. On the other hand, Facebook is playing an egoism role here as it maximise their benefits in various ways while they ignore users privacy and security. According to Kant’s categorical imperative “never treat people merely as a means to an end but as an end in themselves (respect others)” (Tavani, 2007). Some of the information that shared by the feature may not be disrespect for some but may be disrespect for many others. ITC 331- Ethics and Professional Practice People do not want to be tagged in everything they do with their friends and sometimes they might be harmful for their self respects or even at workplaces. From the ethical analysis, it is obvious that this new feature that Facebook has introduced has privacy issues that may not be illegal but in many cases it is not ethical. Therefore, certain action needs to be taken to address the issue. Such as, Facebook may completely remove the feature for the overall wellbeing of the society as well as minimize the privacy issues. It can give user absolute control over their privacy setting. Moreover, they need to monitor the whole feature to make sure people’s privacy is not being invaded. People need to be educated as well. They should know how to control the privacy and the importance of it as well as the consequences of losing privacy in this information world. If more people get educated the more people will be concern about their privacy and they will act according to what’s best for them. Facebook needs to be more honest when it comes to store and share customer’s information. They should not share customer information with third party for advertisement purposes. There should be strict law regarding sharing customer information’s with third parties. There are number of things can be done to safeguard people’s privacy. Now the question is what are the options Facebook may follow to address this situation? They can remove the feature or give more control to users over privacy setting as well as educate them on the best use of privacy settings. However, many will argue that removing the feature is not right solution as it does have many benefits. Such as, people can find other friends around them, it may assist to track or monitor people that may be good for society. In a large location where it is hard to find friends, this feature may help to find them easily. (Kirschner, 2010) But when it comes to privacy it is more ethical to address the situation in a way that it would not grow in future. It’s like rather than cutting a tree from the top every day, cut the root. To make both parties happy, I would recommend the second option which is giving users absolute control over privacy settings and educate them. Users should be able to set their privacy settings “don’t allow” tagging, controlling over timeline location history as well as educating users so that they can decide how they would appropriately use it. This is a better solution for both users and Facebook company as the company can still implement the feature without compromising the privacy of users where else users would be happy as well as they will choose to use it or not. Moreover, user’s that doesn’t want to be tagged they could avoid ITC 331- Ethics and Professional Practice being tagged by friends. More users will be aware of the implications of this feature as well by being educated of the features pros and cons. To sum up, it is very important to understand technology is to serve human being not the other way round. If any technological advancement has bad impact on society weather it is ethical or unethical, legal or illegal it should be illuminated for the betterment of the society. If that is not possible then it should be addressed carefully to minimize the bad affect of it whether it is security, privacy or any other issues. So does, Facebooks new feature “Places” needs to be addressed seriously to confirm that technology is still serving the humanity for their betterment, not the other way round. ITC 331- Ethics and Professional Practice Bibliography: Fowler, G. A. (2010). Facebook Fights Privacy Concerns. In The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703579804575441871011613474.html Kirschner, J. (2010). Facebook Places Tells Friends Where You Are - Here's How it Works. In Techlicious. Retrieved from http://www.techlicious.com/blog/facebook-places-tells-friendswhere-you-are-heres-how- it-works/ Kiss, J. (2010). Facebook Places Location Tool Unveiled, Sparking Fresh Privacy Concerns. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/19/facebookplaces-location-tool-unveiled Tavani, H. T. (2007). Ethics and Technology: Ethical issues in an age of information and communication technology. Hoboken: John Willey. unknown. (2011). Privacy. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy unknown. (n.d). Facebook. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook ITC 331- Ethics and Professional Practice Ethics Technique 1) What is going on? Facebook has introduced a new feature which they named ‘Places’. It lets people to share with others their location and places they have visited. This feature raises lot of concerns regarding user’s privacy. 2) What are the facts? • The new features that Facebook has introduced allow users to share their locations and places they have visited. • It raises issue about user’s privacy. • Advertiser using users information without their consent • It has been using to monitor users activity without users authorisation. • Facebook claims the default setting of the feature is ‘Friend’ which means the information will be shared only with friends by default. 3) What are the issues? • Violating others privacy even though lawfully it’s not illegal. • Sharing unauthorised information with third parties. • Unauthorised monitoring. 4) Who is affected? • Facebook users. 5) What are the ethical issues and implications? • “Deontology is the study of duties and rights. It focuses on the fundamental of human rights and the various entities responsibilities towards these rights: right to know, right to privacy and right to property” (Tavani, 2007) • When Facebooks shares user’s locations and visiting places it is violating user’s privacy even though users agreed on some extent. • User’s information’s are user’s property and that cannot be shared with third party without their consent. • “Utilitarianism is when the action benefits all parties such as customer and company plus the action is right if the benefit outweigh the overall cost involved” (Tavani, 2007) • Even though the feature benefits both companies and users but it is still a concern of privacy issue for many others. May be maximum people are happy with the action and according to utilitarianism the action is right. However, lack of knowledge on the consequences of the action and desire of getting few benefits are few reasons behind their acceptance. On the other hand, Facebook is playing an egoism role here as it maximise their benefits in various ways. ITC 331- Ethics and Professional Practice • According to Kant’s categorical imperative “never treat people merely as a means to an end but as an end in themselves (respect others)”. • Some of the information that shared by the feature may not be disrespect for some but may be disrespect for many others. People do not want to be tagged in everything’s they do with their friends and some are harmful for their self respect. 6) What can be done about it? • Facebook can completely remove the feature or give users more control over privacy setting. • They should educate users regarding strong security settings and its importance and consequences. • They should avoid sharing data with third parties for any kind of advertisement purpose or monitoring purpose without users consent. 7) What options are there? • Completely remove the feature from the Facebook. • Give users absolute control over privacy settings. • Educate users. 8) Which option is best and why? Giving users absolute control over privacy settings and educating them is the best solution to address this ethical issue. It will make both parties happy. Facebook can still have the feature where users get more privacy control and being educated will assist them to aware of their privacy and rights. An explanation of the Doing Ethics Technique Graham R Seach Simpson, C. R., Nevile, L., & Burmeister, O. K. (2003). Doing ethics: A universal technique in an accessibility context. Australian Journal of Information Systems, 10(2), 127-133. The 'Doing Ethics' technique (DET) is a process for analysing ethical issues in any scenario. It doesn't guarantee that what you come up with will be the best solution, but it does help you to think ethically. That said, I understand that the technique may seem a little vague and perhaps lacking guidance. To that end, the following might help you to understand how to apply the technique in order to better understand ethical analysis. To gain the most from the technique, you must explore and answer all eight questions in the order in which they are posed. Each question stands alone and you cannot take the view that because you have given information in response to one question that you can omit the same information from subsequent questions. Q1. What's going on? This is a synopsis of what the case is all about. It is written in your own words, and can be taken from a variety of perspectives, for example, from the perspective of a person raising a complaint, in which case, it is a synopsis of the complaint. It can be taken from the perspective of an uninvolved observer, in which case, it is an outline of what was observed, without going into too much detail. Where you see multiple perspectives, you should describe them here. This question should target a reader who has no knowledge of the case at hand, and is a brief outline of the case. Q2. What are the facts? This is a descriptive list of all the facts of the case. It doesn't just describe the case, but lists all the facts as they are known (from all sources and perspectives), and also what one might reasonably consider to be possibilities. For example, if a person was raising a complaint, Question 1 would outline their complaint, and Question 2 would provide the detailed facts and the evidence to both support and refute the claims (facts). All facts listed here must be supported by credible evidence, of which the case itself is one source. If you choose, you may optionally assign a credibility weighting to each fact, to help with later analysis. Q3. What are the ethical and non-ethical issues? This is a list of ALL the issues that are involved in the case, whether they be ethical, legal, social or otherwise. In Question 5 we extract only the ethical issues for further analysis, but for now, simply list and describe every relevant issue you can think of. This is probably the most difficult and important question to get right, because Question 5 can only include the ethical that you have raised here in Question 3. Therefore, this question must be a complete and comprehensive list of ALL the issues. Q4. Who is affected? This is a list of all the stakeholders (people and entities) involved in the case. You should not restrict the list to those stakeholders specifically named in the case; moreover, you must consider who/what else might be affected by the issues listed at Question 3, and include them regardless of the degree to which they may be affected. In this question, you must describe how each stakeholder is affected, both positively and negatively, and you may optionally comment on the degree of effect. In answering this question, you must think broadly to arrive at a comprehensive list of stakeholders. Q5. What are the ethical issues and implications? For this question, you must extract only the ethical issues identified at Question 3. You cannot add any issue that was not listed at Question 3. Discuss the ethical issues in terms of classical ethical theory, relevant codes of ethics/codes of conduct, and discuss the implications of each issue on the nominated stakeholders, relevant industries, and on the community in general. You must ensure to support any statement or claim you make with credible evidence. Q6. What can be done about it? This question elicits a general idea of what can be done to resolve the case, whether those ideas are practical, possible, or not. Describe in your own words generally what kind of resolutions there might be. You need not go into great detail to answer this question, as its purpose is to provide a basis for answering Questions 7 and 8, but you do need to think broadly and laterally to come up with several alternatives - at least four. Be creative; the most obvious courses of action are not always the only ones. Q7. What are the options? This question requires that you list and describe (in detail) all the possible options that might be available to resolve the case. This question is based upon the alternatives you described in Question 6, and your responses here can only include your alternatives from Question 6. It is possible that not all the options will result in a positive outcome for all stakeholders, so you must describe the perceived positive and negative outcomes of each option. List and describe at least three different options. The answer you give at Question 8 can only be one of the options given here at Question 7. Q8. Which option is best - and why? In answering this question, you need to assess which of the options described in Question 7 is the best. You are recommending a single option from those described in Question 7. You must argue one option against the other, weighing up their benefits and detriments, providing a solid basis in fact and reasonable (and supportable) conjecture. In other words, you must clearly demonstrate why your chosen option is better than any of the others. You must add some of your own intellectual property, as an ICT professional, into answering this question. You may reiterate arguments from previous questions to help argue your case. What’s going on? Which option is best – and why? What are the facts? What options are there? What are the issues? What can be done about it? Who is affected? What are the ethical issues and implications?
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