Legal, Social and Ethical Issues in Mis
Legal, Social and Ethical Issues in Mis
Legal, Social and Ethical Issues in Mis
Copying data from one location to another and accessing personal data from remote locations is much
easier with the growth of networks and the internet.
ETHICS IN MIS
Ethics refers to the principles of right or wrong that individuals acting as free moral agents use to make choices
to guide their behaviour.
Ethics can be discussed in the following branches.
i)
ii)
iii)
iv)
Normative Ethics
It is the field of ethics that explause what human morally ought to do.
Most normative ethics belong to either deotological or consequentialist families
Descriptive ethics
This is the study of moral development in humans. They do not seek to pronounce what is right or
wrong but merely to describe what people think is right or wrong.
Applied ethics.
It seeks to apply the basic ethical principles to concrete situations especially to controversial social
issues such as abortion, animal rights, homosexuality etc.
Meta ethics
It is concerned with what justifies moral judgement. It concerns whether there are any moral truth
and if so what makes the moral truth true
Responsibility: This means that one has to accept potential costs, duties and obligations for the
decisions that they make.
Accountability: It means mechanisms are in place for identifying who took responsible action and
who are the responsible parties.
Liability: This is a feature of political system in which a body of laws permits individuals or
organisations to recover damages done to them by other peoples systems.
Due process: Its a process in which laws are well known and understood ande the reasonability to
appeal to a higher authority to ensure laws are applied correctly.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Do unto others as you would have them do to you i.e. place yourself in the place of others and think of
yourself and the object of the decision and this can help you think about fairness in the decision.
Categorical Imperatives
If an action is not right for everyone to take for anyone to take.
De Scartes- Rule of change.
If an action cannot be taken repeatedly then it is not right to be taken at all.
It is also referred to as the slippery slope rule, where an action may bring a small change that is
acceptable but if it is repeated the results will be unacceptable.
Utilitarian Principle
Take an action that achieves a higher or greater value. The rule assumes that one can priotise value in
rank order & understand consequences of various causes of actions.
Egoistic Principle
Take an action that produces the least harm or least potential cost.
Risk aversion Principle
Take an action that will realise the greatest value to oneself.
Ethics No free lunch principle.
It assumes that virtually all tangible and intangible resources are owned by someone unless there is a
specific declaration otherwise.
If something someone has created is useful to you and it has value then you should know that the creator
wants compensation for the item.
iii)
iv)
v)
Transparency- Organisation should be transparent and notify individuals regarding the collection,
use, dissemination and maintenance of private information.
Individual participation - Organisation should involve individuals in the process using private
information to the extent practicable.
They should seek individual consent for the collecton use and dissemination of the information.
Use Limitation - Organisations should use private information for the purposes specified in the
notice.
Security - Organisations should protect private information through appropriate security safeguards
against risks suchas loss, unauthorised access, destruction or unintended disclosure.
Accountability and auditing - Organisations should be accountable for complying with principles
providing training to all employees and auditing the actual use of private information.
Ease of replication.
Ease of transmission.
Difficulty in classifying softwares.
Difficulties in establishing uniqueness.
5. Compactness.