1. Societal Issues in Computing (COMP466)
Chapter 3
COMPUTER ETHICS
Prepared by: Qasem Obeidat

2. Ethics
Suppose you are a manager and you discover that many of your employees are spending a lot of time visiting sports, stock, and entertainment Web sites while at work. Will you install monitoring software that records what sites each employee visits and how much time he or she spends there? Will you inform employee first?

3. Computer Ethics
“We are entering a generation marked by globalization and ubiquitous computing. The second generation of computer ethics, therefore must be an era of “global information ethics.” Bynum and Rogerson

4. Computer Ethics
In 1966, a programmer used computer code to keep his checking account from being flagged as overdrawn. When the bank discovered the crime the programmer could not be charged with a computer crime because no computer crime law existed. He was charged with making false bank records.

5. What are Ethics?
Derived from the Greek word “ethos”, which means “custom”, “habit”, and “way of living”
Ethics is concerned with human conduct, i.e., behavior of individuals in society
Ethics is a system of morals of a particular person, religion or a group

6. What are Ethics? (Cont…)
Ethics – principles of right and wrong that can be used by individuals acting as free moral agents to make choices to guide their behavior
Moral: means dealing with, or capable of, distinguishing between right and wrong, and between just and unjust
Ethical Theory: a system of ethics guides towards actions good for all

7. Professional Ethics
Professional Ethics: concerns one's conduct of behavior and practice when carrying out professional work, e.g., consulting, researching, teaching and writing.
Professional Ethics must take into accounts:
Relations between professionals and clients
Relation between profession and society
Relations among professionals
Relations between employee and employer
A computing professional must understand
Cultural, social, legal, and ethical issues in computing
Responsibility and possible consequences of failure

8. Professional Ethics (Cont…)
Professional organizations dealing with computing have code of ethics (e.g. IEEE, ACM, and NSPE)

9. Four Key Technology Trends That Raise Computing Ethical Issues
Computing power doubles every 18 months
increases power, but system errors and poor data quality.
Data storage costs rapidly declining
helps companies and individuals to obtain and store more private or protected info/material
Data analysis advances
Advances in data mining enable people to find much more information than before
Profiling: use of computers to combine data from multiple sources and create electronic dossiers of detailed information on individuals
4. Networking advances and the Internet
greatly reduces the cost of the obtaining information and moving information.

10. Basic concepts form the underpinning of an ethical analysis of information systems and those who manage them
Responsibility: Accepting the potential costs, duties, and obligations for the decisions he/she makes
Accountability: mechanisms that are in place to determine who took responsibility action (social institutions)
Liability: body of laws in place that permits individuals to recover damages done to them by other actors
Due process: process in which laws are known and understood and there is an ability to appeal to higher authorities to ensure that laws are applied correctly

11. Candidate Ethical Principles
1. Golden Rule
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
2. Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative
If an action is not right for everyone to take, it is not right for anyone
3. Descartes' rule of change
If an action cannot be taken repeatedly, it is not right to take at all
4. Utilitarian Principle
Take the action that achieves the higher or greater value
5. Risk Aversion Principle
Take the action that produces the least harm or least potential cost
6. Ethical “no free lunch” rule
Assume that virtually all tangible and intangible objects are owned by someone unless there is a specific declaration otherwise

12. Computer Ethics
Computer ethics defined as the application of classical ethical principles to the use of computer technology

13. Computer ethics history
: Founded by MIT prof Norbert Wiener: cybernetics-science of information feedback systems.
1960s: Donn Parker from California examined unethical and illegal uses of computers by professionals. 1st code of professional conduct for the ACM.
1970: Joseph Weizenbaum, prof at MIT, created Eliza.
Mid 1970: Walter Maner taught 1st course and starter kit in computer ethics.

14. Computer ethics history (cont.)
1980: Issues like computer-enabled crime, disasters, invasion of privacy via databases, law suits about software ownership became public.
Mid 80s: James Moore of Darmouth, Deborah Johnson of Rensselaer, Sherry Turkle of MIT, and Judith Perrole published article and books.

15. Computer ethics history (cont.)
1990: Interest in computer ethics as a field of research had spread to Europe and Australia.
Simon Rogerson of De Montfort University (UK) Terrell Bynum, editor of Metaphilosophy (USA), initiated international conferences.
Mid 90s: Beginning of a 2nd generation of computer ethics with more practical action.
2004: Interest spreads to Cotonou, Benin

16. Ethical, Social and Political Issues
Social Institutions
Cannot respond overnight to ripples of Information flow. It takes years to develop etiquette, expectations, social responsibilities and political correct attitudes
Political Institutions
Require time before developing new laws and often require the demonstration of real harm before they act.
YOU MAY BE FORCED TO ACT IN A LEGAL GRAY AREA

17. The Relationship Among Ethical, Social, Political Issues in an Information Society

18. Five Moral Dimensions of the Information Age
Information rights and obligations
(Privacy and Freedom in the Internet Age)
What information rights do individuals have with respect to information about themselves?
Property rights and obligations
(Digital Intellectual Property)
How will traditional intellectual property rights be protected in a digital society in which tracing and accounting for ownership is difficult.

19. Five Moral Dimensions of the Information Age (Cont…)
Accountability and control (Who is liable for injuries that result from machines controlled by software?)
Who can and will be held accountable and liable for the harm done to the individual and collective information and property rights?
System quality (data quality and system errors)
Software bugs and errors
Hardware or facility failures caused by natural or other causes
Poor input data quality

20. Five Moral Dimensions of the Information Age (Cont…)
Quality of life (Equity, Access, and Boundaries)
What values should be preserved in an information and knowledge-based society? What institutions should we protect? What cultures and values?

21. Computer Ethical Issues
Computers have created some ethical issues. We introduce some of these here.
1. Privacy
Computers allow communication between two parties to be done electronically. However, much needs to be done to make this type of communication private. Society is paying a big price for private electronic communication. Network security may create this type of privacy, but it needs effort and costs a lot.

22. Computer Ethical Issues
2. Copyright
Another ethical issue in a computerized society is copyright: who owns data? The Internet has created opportunities to share ideas, but has also brought with it a further ethical issue: electronic copyright.
3. Computer crime
Hackers have been able to access many computers in the world and have stolen a lot of money.
Virus creators design new viruses to be sent through the Internet and damage the information stored in computers.