mis 2000 chapter 4 social, legal and ethical issues

MIS 2000MIS 2000

Chapter 4Chapter 4

Social, Legal and Ethical IssuesSocial, Legal and Ethical Issues

Outline

Law and EthicsAccountability and LiabilityInformation RightsPrivacyComputer Abuse and CrimeIntellectual PropertyFair Information Practices

Social, Legal & Ethical IssuesMIS 2000 Information Systems for

Management 2


Management 3

Discussion Questions

1) Employer can monitor email of employees? Is this moral? Legal?

2) A disk with data is found in a bank employee’s bag and the company sues him. Who can win?

3) Programmer X uses a piece from legally purchased software as part of a software package he develops and sells the package under his name. Is this moral? Legal?

4) Company A sues company B for copying design (screen layout—user interface) of A’s Web site. Is Company B’s behavior moral? Legal?


Management 4

Ethics and Law

Principles of right and wrong acquired through socialization.

Unwritten norms, stable over timeThere are different ethics, we usually talk about norms shared by a majorityViolation leads to social sanctioning/condemnation

Law: Legislative pronouncements of rules to be followed in society

Written, changeableViolation leads to financial and physical liability before court


Management 5

Computer-based information systems and data, information, knowledge (in digital or other format) are related to both ethical and legal issues.

For example, collecting large amounts of data on customers

(data warehousing), and processing this data to understand customers (data mining and customer profiling) potentially violates norms of privacy and more recently began colliding with new laws on protecting personal information.

Should anyone pay for crashes, lost data and transactions?


Management 6

Law: Computer Crime

Illegal acts through use of computer system or against a computer system (hacking, sniffing, spoofing*, spamming**)

Ethics: Computer Abuse

Acts involving a computer that may not be illegal, but are unethical

(e.g., using firm’s computer for private business, like “cyberslacking”; spamming)

Computer Crime vs. Abuse


Management 7

Ethics/Law: Responsibility or Accountability

Being answerable for own acts and decisions, accepting costs, duties, obligations Can be legislated

Law: Liability - Laws permit recovery of damagesDue process - Ability to ensure that laws are applied correctly

Responsibility, Liability, Due Process


Management 8

In new segments of social relationships it often happens that ethics precedes law.

This applies to information systems; for example,hackers’ damaging of property of others had been condemned as bad behavior but as illegal until appropriate laws were introduced;selling information on customers was sometimes criticized but only recently became illegal

Ethics Becomes Law


Management 9

Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual Property

Intangible property created by

individuals or organizations,

protected under trade secret,

copyright and patent law


Management 10

Anything communicated in confidence, not based on public knowledge – an idea, organized data (report), work or product (might be parts of software) used for a business purpose, not information in public domain

Trade secret law is under provincial jurisdiction

Employees asked to sign nondisclosure agreements

Might include software with unique elements (ideas embedded in them)

Trade Secret


Management 11

Copyright

Statutory grant that protects creators of intellectual

property from having their work copied by others for any

purpose for a period of at least 50 years

Canadian Copyright Act protects original literary, artistic,

musical, & dramatic works

Computer software is protected in Canada as a literary

work (period of 50 years or death of author + 50 years).

Associating author's name and software integrity also

protected.


Management 12

Fair Use

Use of intellectual property of others for non-

commercial purposes that is acceptable even though

copyright (e.g. copyright) is not released

Example: using longer citations from scientific

articles and copies of those articles in university

classes

New area of Digital Law, lots of gray zone


Management 13

Legal document that grants the owner an exclusive

monopoly on the ideas behind an invention for between

17-20 years

Determined by the Patent Office & relies on court rulings

Ensure inventors of new machines, devices and methods

receive financial and other rewards

Canadian Patent Office does not accept applications for

software patents because software is considered to fall

under Canadian copyright law

Patent


Management 14

Challenges to Intellectual Property Rights

Peer-to-peer Networking (Napster)

Nature of electronic dataProliferation of access points in networksEasy to copy information productsDifficult to track copying and distribution of these products


Management 15Social, Legal & Ethical IssuesMIS 2000 Information Systems for

Management 15

Fair Information Practices (FIP)

A set of principles originally set forth in 1973 that governs the collection and use of personal data /information(North America and Europe)

Individual freedoms and privacy protection

Serves as basis to protecting personal information in later legislation

Privacy:An ethical (cultural) principle of a freedom of individuals to be left alone, free from surveillance or interference from other individuals, organizations, or government.


Management 16

Personal Information Protection in Canada

Based on FIPCanada’s Privacy Legislation

PIPEDA- Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act; Enacted in 2000, completes some other lawsApplies to public and private organizationsPrivacy Commissioner; Federal Court for unresolved cases


Management 17

Every province has its own; Most still apply only to information held by public sector

Manitoba: Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) from 1998 dealing with protection of personal information and grants access to records held by public bodies. Extended in 2000 to include all local governments, school divisions, community colleges, universities, health authorities and hospitals.

Only Quebec’s privacy laws meet European standards & apply to information held by the private sector

Canadian Provincial Privacy Laws


Management 18

Data collection through forms & registrations

Secondary use of data for other purposes

Spam: Junk e-mail (spamming)

Profiling online customers – customer value vs. intrusion into privacy

(What data is collected? How much? Do companies disclose how they would use the data?)

Internet Challenges to Privacy

mis 2000 chapter 4 social, legal and ethical issues

Documents

legal ethical issuesmis

selling information

personal information

law slide

legal issues

abuse slide

process slide

computer abuse acts