Ethics in Information

Technology

Ethics for IT Workers and IT Users

Ethics in Information 1
Technology
2 Objectives

 As you read this chapter, consider the following

questions:
 What key characteristics distinguish a professional from
other kinds of workers, and is an IT worker considered a
professional?
 What factors are transforming the professional services
industry?
 What relationships must an IT worker manage, and what
key ethical issues can arise in each?

Ethics in Information Technology

3 Objectives (cont’d.)

 How do codes of ethics, professional organizations,

certification, and licensing affect the ethical behavior of
IT professionals?
 What is meant by compliance, and how does it help
promote the right behaviors and discourage undesirable
ones?

Ethics in Information Technology

4 IT Professionals

 Profession is a calling that requires:

 Specialized knowledge
 Long and intensive academic preparation
 Professionals:
 Require advanced training and experience
 Must exercise discretion and judgment in their work
 Their work cannot be standardized
 Contribute to society, participate in lifelong training, assist
other professionals
 Carry special rights and responsibilities

Ethics in Information Technology

5 Are IT Workers Professionals?

 Partial list of IT specialists

 Programmers
 Systems analysts
 Software engineers
 Database administrators
 Local area network (LAN) administrators
 Chief information officers (CIOs)

Ethics in Information Technology

6 Are IT Workers Professionals?
(cont’d.)
 Legal perspective
 IT workers do not meet legal definition of professional
 Not licensed by state or federal government
 Not liable for malpractice

Ethics in Information Technology

7 The Changing Professional
Services Industry
 IT workers are considered part of the professional
services industry
 Seven forces are changing professional services
 Client sophistication (able to drive hard bargains)
 Governance (due to major scandals)
 Connectivity (instant communications)
 Transparency (view work-in-progress in real-time)
 Modularization (able to outsource modules)
 Globalization (worldwide sourcing)
 Commoditization (for low-end services)

Ethics in Information Technology

8 Professional Relationships
That Must Be Managed
 IT workers involved in relationships with:
 Employers
 Clients
 Suppliers
 Other professionals
 IT users
 Society at large

Ethics in Information Technology

9 Relationships Between
IT Workers and Employers
 IT workers agree on many aspects of work relationship
before workers accept job offer
 Other aspects of work relationship defined in
company’s policy and procedure manual or code of
conduct
 Some aspects develop over time
 As steward of organization’s IT resources, IT workers
must set an example and enforce policies regarding
the ethical use of IT in:

Ethics in Information Technology

10 Relationships Between
IT Workers and Employers
• Software piracy
– Act of illegally making copies of software or enabling
access to software to which they are not entitled
– Area in which IT workers can be tempted to violate laws
and policies
– The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is a trade group
representing the world’s largest software and hardware
manufacturers; mission is to stop the unauthorized
copying of software
– Thousands of cases prosecuted each year

Ethics in Information Technology

11 Relationships Between
IT Workers and Employers
(cont’d.)

Ethics in Information Technology

12 Relationships Between
IT Workers and Employers
(cont’d.)
 IT workers must set an example and enforce policies
regarding the ethical use of IT in: (cont’d.)
 Trade secrets
 Business information generally unknown to public
 Company takes actions to keep confidential
 Require cost or effort to develop
 Have some degree of uniqueness or novelty

 Whistle-blowing
 Employee attracts attention to a negligent, illegal, unethical,
abusive, or dangerous act that threatens the public interest

Ethics in Information Technology

13 Relationships Between
IT Workers and Clients
 IT worker provides:
 Hardware, software, or services at a certain cost and
within a given time frame
 Client provides:
 Compensation
 Access to key contacts
 Work space
 Relationship is usually documented in contractual
terms

Ethics in Information Technology

14 Relationships Between
IT Workers and Clients (cont’d.)

 Client makes decisions about a project based on

information, alternatives, and recommendations
provided by the IT worker
 Client trusts IT worker to act in client’s best interests
 IT worker trusts that client will provide relevant
information, listen to and understand what the IT
worker says, ask questions to understand impact of key
decisions, and use the information to make wise
choices

Ethics in Information Technology

15 Relationships Between
IT Workers and Clients (cont’d.)

 Ethical problems arise if a company recommends its

own products and services to remedy problems they
have detected
 Creates a conflict of interest
 Problems arise during a project if IT workers are unable
to provide full and accurate reporting of a project’s
status
 Finger pointing and heated discussions can ensue

Ethics in Information Technology

16 Relationships Between
IT Workers and Clients (cont’d.)

 Fraud
 Crime of obtaining goods, services, or property through
deception or trickery
 Misrepresentation
 Misstatement or incomplete statement of material fact
 If misrepresentation causes a party to enter into a
contract, that party may have the right to cancel
contract or seek reimbursement for damages

Ethics in Information Technology

17 Relationships Between
IT Workers and Clients (cont’d.)

 Breach of contract
 One party fails to meet the terms of a contract
 When there is material breach of contract:
 The non-breaching party may rescind the contract, seek
restitution of any compensation paid to the breaching party,
and be discharged from any further performance under the
contract

 IT projects are joint efforts in which vendors and

customers work together
 When there are problems, it is difficult to assign who is at
fault

Ethics in Information Technology

18 Relationships Between
IT Workers and Suppliers
 Develop good working relationships with suppliers:
 To encourage flow of useful information and ideas to
develop innovative and cost-effective ways of using the
supplier in ways that the IT worker may not have
considered
 By dealing fairly with them
 By not making unreasonable demands

Ethics in Information Technology

19 Relationships Between
IT Workers and Suppliers
(cont’d.)
 Bribery
 Providing money, property, or favors to obtain a business
advantage
 U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA): crime to bribe
a foreign official, a foreign political party official, or a
candidate for foreign political office
 At what point does a gift become a bribe?
 No gift should be hidden
 Perceptions of donor and recipient can differ
 United Nations Convention Against Corruption is a global
treaty to fight bribery and corruption

Ethics in Information Technology

20 Relationships Between
IT Workers and Suppliers
(cont’d.)

Ethics in Information Technology

21 Relationships Between
IT Workers and Other
Professionals
 Professionals feel a degree of loyalty to other
members of their profession
 Professionals owe each other adherence to their
profession’s code of conduct
 Ethical problems among the IT profession
 Résumé inflation on 30% of U.S. job applications
 Inappropriate sharing of corporate information
 Information might be sold intentionally or shared informally
with those who have no need to know

Ethics in Information Technology

22 Relationships Between
IT Workers and IT Users
 IT user: person using a hardware or software product
 IT workers’ duties
 Understand users’ needs and capabilities
 Deliver products and services that meet those needs
 Establish environment that supports ethical behavior:
 To discourages software piracy
 To minimize inappropriate use of corporate computing
resources
 To avoid inappropriate sharing of information

Ethics in Information Technology

23 Relationships Between
IT Workers and Society
 Society expects members of a profession:
 To provide significant benefits
 To not cause harm through their actions
 Actions of an IT worker can affect society
 Professional organizations provide codes of ethics to
guide IT workers’ actions

Ethics in Information Technology

24 Professional Codes of Ethics

 State the principles and core values that are essential

to the work of an occupational group
 Most codes of ethics include:
 What the organization aspires to become
 Rules and principles by which members of the
organization are expected to abide
 Many codes also include commitment to continuing
education for those who practice the profession

Ethics in Information Technology

25 Professional Codes of Ethics
(cont’d.)
 Following a professional code of ethics can produce
benefits for the individual, the profession, and society
as a whole
 Ethical decision making
 High standards of practice and ethical behavior
 Trust and respect from general public
 Evaluation benchmark for self-assessment

Ethics in Information Technology

26 Professional Organizations

 No universal code of ethics for IT professionals

 No single, formal organization of IT professionals has
emerged as preeminent
 Five of the most prominent organizations include:
 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer
Society (IEEE-CS)
 Association of IT Professionals (AITP)
 SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security (SANS) Institute

Ethics in Information Technology

27 Certification

 Indicates that a professional possesses a particular set

of skills, knowledge, or abilities in the opinion of the
certifying organization
 Can also apply to products
 Generally voluntary
 May or may not require adherence to a code of
ethics
 Employers view as benchmark of knowledge
 Opinions are divided on value of certification

Ethics in Information Technology

28 Certification (cont’d.)

 Vendor certifications
 Some certifications substantially improve IT workers’
salaries and career prospects
 Relevant for narrowly defined roles or certain aspects of
broader roles
 Require passing a written exam, or in some cases, a
hands-on lab to demonstrate skills and knowledge
 Can take years to obtain necessary experience
 Training can be expensive

Ethics in Information Technology

29 Certification (cont’d.)

 Industry association certifications

 Require a higher level of experience and a broader
perspective than vendor certifications
 Must sit for and pass written exam
 May need to pay annual renewal fee, earn continuing
education credits, and/or pass renewal test
 Lag in developing tests that cover new technologies
 Are moving from purely technical content to a broader
mix of technical, business, and behavioral competencies

Ethics in Information Technology

30 Government Licensing

 License is a government-issued permission to engage

in an activity or operate a business
 Generally administered at the state level in the United
States
 Often requires that recipient pass a test
 Some professionals must be licensed – doctors,
lawyers, CPAs, medical and day care providers,
engineers
 One goal: protect public safety

Ethics in Information Technology

31 Government Licensing
(cont’d.)
 Case for licensing IT workers
 Encourages following highest standards of profession
 Encourages practicing a code of ethics
 Violators would be punished
 Without licensing, there are no requirements for
heightened care and no concept of professional
malpractice

Ethics in Information Technology

32 Government Licensing
(cont’d.)
 Issues associated with government licensing of IT
workers
 There are few licensing programs for IT professionals
 No universally accepted core body of knowledge
 Unclear who should manage content and administration of
licensing exams
 No administrative body to accredit professional education
programs
 No administrative body to assess and ensure competence of
individual workers

Ethics in Information Technology

33 IT Professional Malpractice

 Negligence: not doing something that a reasonable

person would do, or doing something that a
reasonable person would not do
 Duty of care: obligation to protect people against any
unreasonable harm or risk
 Reasonable person standard
 Reasonable professional standard
 Professional malpractice: professionals who breach
the duty of care are liable for injuries that their
negligence causes

Ethics in Information Technology

34 IT Users

 Employees’ ethical use of IT is an area of growing

concern because of increased access to:
 Personal computers
 Corporate information systems and data
 The Internet

Ethics in Information Technology

35 Common Ethical Issues for IT
Users
 Software piracy
 Inappropriate use of computing resources
 Erodes productivity and wastes time
 Could lead to lawsuits
 Inappropriate sharing of information, including:
 Every organization stores vast amounts of private or
confidential data
 Private data (employees and customers)
 Confidential information (company and operations)

Ethics in Information Technology

36 Supporting the Ethical Practices
of
IT Users
 Policies that protect against abuses:
 Set forth general rights and responsibilities of users
 Create boundaries of acceptable behavior
 Enable management to punish violators
 Policy components include:
 Establishing guidelines for use of company software
 Defining appropriate use of IT resources
 Structuring information systems to protect data and
information
 Installing and maintaining a corporate firewall

Ethics in Information Technology

37 Supporting the Ethical Practices
of
IT Users (cont’d.)

Ethics in Information Technology

38

Ethics in Information Technology

39 Compliance

 To be in accordance with established policies,

guidelines, specifications, and legislation
 Sarbanes-Oxley – established requirements for internal
controls
 HIPAA – ensures security and privacy of employee
healthcare data
 Failure to be in conformance can lead to criminal or civil
penalties and also lawsuits

Ethics in Information Technology

40 Compliance (cont’d.)

 Major challenge to comply with multiple government

and industry regulations that are sometimes in conflict
 To meet this challenge:
 Implement software to track and record compliance
actions
 Hire management consultants for advice and training
 Create Chief Compliance Officer position

Ethics in Information Technology

41 Compliance (cont’d.)

 Audit committee is subset of the board of directors,

with oversight for the following activities:
 Quality and integrity of accounting and reporting
practices and controls
 Compliance with legal and regulatory requirements
 Qualifications, independence, and performance of
organization’s independent auditor
 Performance of company’s internal audit team

Ethics in Information Technology

42 Compliance (cont’d.)

 Internal audit committee responsibilities:

 Determine that internal systems and controls are
adequate and effective
 Verify existence of company assets and maintain proper
safeguards over their protection
 Measure the organization’s compliance with its own
policies and procedures
 Insure that institutional policies and procedures,
appropriate laws, and good practices are followed
 Evaluate adequacy and reliability of information
available for management decision making

Ethics in Information Technology

43 Summary

 Professionals
 Require advanced training and experience
 Must exercise discretion and judgment in their work
 Their work cannot be standardized
 From a legal standpoint, a professional:
 Has passed the state licensing requirements
 Has earned the right to practice in a state(s)
 IT professionals have many different relationships
 Each with its own ethical issues and potential problems

Ethics in Information Technology

44 Summary (cont’d.)

 Professional code of ethics

 States the principles and core values essential to the work
of an occupational group
 Serves as a guideline for ethical decision making
 Promotes high standards of practice and behavior
 Enhances trust and respect from the general public
 Provides an evaluation benchmark
 Licensing and certification of IT professionals
 Would increase the reliability and effectiveness of
information systems
 Raises many issues

Ethics in Information Technology

45 Summary (cont’d.)

 IT-related professional organizations have developed

their code of ethics that:
 Outlines what the organization aspires to become
 Lists rules and principles for members
 Includes a commitment to continuing education for
those who practice the profession
 Audit committee and internal audit team have a
major role in ensuring that both the IT organization and
IT users are in compliance with guidelines and various
legal and regulatory practices

Ethics in Information Technology