Ethical Aspects in Cyberspace and IT Society (Essay Sample)

Ethical Aspects in Cyberspace and IT Society
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Ethical Aspects in Cyberspace and IT Society
Introduction
Ethics is the concern where humans have to figure out how to live correctly. The essential thing in life is not about just living, but living a good life. How humans attempt to find a good life by choosing out of varieties is the question that ethics seems to find answers to it. In this modern times, the study of ethics is found in almost all disciplines. Ethics is found in political, cultural, and religious groups of people, where it teaches them how to live in a good manner. The ethical discussion has also gained entry into the professional world, where many professional fields are integrating the ethical aspects in their fields to ensure that there are standards that the members abide by. That is why ethics has been integrated into the field of cyberspace and information technology.
Due to the growing consensus on ethics’ importance in technical fields, it has become a language that technical experts are comfortable using. Today, the leading technical professional organization, the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, has a section that is fully centered on ethics in technology. Since technology has been increasingly shaping the thinking of humans and making them seek the ‘sweet life,’ the poorly designed part of technology will make it hard for people to live well. A better understanding of cyberspace and information technology ethics is key to promoting and protecting individuals in this increasing network society. Therefore it is vital to understand the privacy concerns, security, and the negative effects of information technology and cyberspace. Despite various measures being taken regarding cyberspace and information technology issues, these measures such as digital identification, data encryption, and firewall being developed to avert the problems in the sectors, legal actions should be enforced. This enforcement of the legal actions would address the increasing ethical problems resulting from information technology and cyberspace in the global society.
Ethical Aspects
Many people and organizations that are involved with information technology and cybersecurity, and space are faced with various ethical concerns. For instance, there are privacy issues regarding employees of companies in terms of emails monitoring. Most of the employees’ emails in organizations are always monitored, which brings in a question of ethics to determine whether the monitoring is right or wrong. Electronic surveillance for employees is very limited, meaning that their employers can monitor their activities while in the office. There is a challenge in this scenario because the law seems not to be supporting the act or even not condemning the act. This makes the distinction between illegalities and unethical behaviors in workplaces very difficult to distinguish. Due to the advancement of computer technology, ethical concerns are important to understand, especially those that are reacted to privacy, security, and their effects, such as information technology issues. Information technology has an essential role in various industries such as government, commerce, education, medicine, engineering, and entertainment (Gruszczak & Frankowski, 2016). The socioeconomic benefits of information technology are widely known, and they need not be explained. However, just like any other technology, information technology has implications, especially in society. It creates some ethical problems: harmful actions, access rights, and privacy issues.
Regarding personal privacy, information technology facilitates the exchange of data on a very large scale from anybody anywhere across the globe at any given time. This data exchange gives room and increases the risks for information disclosure, which violates people’s privacy and groups of individuals because of the widespread distribution globally. Therefore, it is the responsibility and challenge of individuals to maintain the integrity and privacy of data. The protection can be done by ensuring measures are put in place to establish data accuracy, protect the data from accidental disclosure to unnecessary people, and protect the data from unauthorized access. Another aspect of threat in cyberspace and information technology is the issue of identity theft (Ramadhan et al., 2011). This is where identity information is stolen and used to blackmail and extort individuals. The criminals use the information to falsify financial transactions and other illegal activities like providing identities to criminals. Hacking can also be used in obtaining sensitive information on people for blackmail and other illegal manipulations. Privacy violations can be used to harm some interested parties by victims. For example, cases of blackmailing compromised employees into releasing sensitive information on clients, trade secrets, or government espionage are there.
The growth of the global data ecosystem has increased the risks of privacy created by poor or unethical practices by individuals. Privacy is not just about the activities that individuals engage in online space. There are other means where data can be gathered. They include voice recognition, facial recognition, and geocoded data, which can now be identified and obtain information about individuals in public and private spaces. Privacy harm affects the people who have their information exposed to the risks of cyber threats. It also harms those supposedly living off the digital grid (Finnemore, 2018). These people have little control over their data being shared by family members, friends, service providers, and clients. For instance, those who think their data is secured may be targeted through their respective medical insurance companies or the law firms, where their data may be stored less securely. In normal cyberspace, most sensitive data do not stay confined in the digital context that was shared and created initially. This means that no one is guaranteed of privacy invasion, even those who are not digitally connected. Thus, poor cybersecurity and information technology practices such as outdated lax patching methods, encryption tools, and lack of response planning are ineffective, unethical, and expose individuals to privacy concerns.
Another area of ethical concern and issue in information technology and cyberspace is the access right. This ethical concern is also an issue in computing systems (Dipert, 2010). With the increased popularity of international business or commerce on the online platforms, the issue of computer security, safety, and access right has shifted from low priority to high priority for governments and cooperations. This interesting shift has occurred because of the increased attempts of computer break-ins at various institutions across the globe. Hence, the illegal access can be averted by ensuring the implementation of corrective measures in computer policies regarding security strategies and policies to ensure the internet is safe. Another form of ethical concern is harmful action. Harmful action means negative consequences or injuries like the loss of properties, information loss, property damage, and other environmental effects. The principle of harmful action in computer ethics prohibits the use of cyberspace and information technology in processes and ways that could harm other users, the general public, employers, and employees. Harmful action relates to the willing destruction of files or programs and modifying them. This interruption means losses to the resources and expenditure on other resources like time and efforts to avert the computer threats.
Investigations into the privacy and security issues related to the ethical issues in cyberspace and problem related to information technology have been very few, which has enabled the unethical issues to continue thriving in the cyberspace world and information technology (Allhoff, 2017). Another ethical issue in cyberspace and information technology is resource allocation to cybersecurity. The cost of maintaining secure cyberspace is always very high. These efforts to maintain cyberspace consume resources in terms of expertise, money, and time. Those efforts impose many costs on the resources. Ineffective cyberspace measures impose higher and unacceptable costs. A network, which is secured in a maximum way but is not usable, or economically sustainable can never be justified. In efforts to understand the ethical issues in resource allocation, a person should consider the need for balancing resource needs and cyberspace security. Getting a justified balance between cyberspace security, information technology, and other functionality kinds is an ethical matter. This is because there is a requirement to reflect keenly on the benefits, harms, values, and rights involved in making decisions and the decision of other individuals to get good lives.
Another ethical concern in cyberspace and information technology is disclosure and transparency. Disclosure and transparency usually affect the well-being of other individuals. Cyberspace and information technology involve risk management because the risks involved have a significant impact on other involved parties. Thus, it is ethical or rather an ethical obligation to come clean on the risks when they are known to ensure correct and informed decisions are arrived at by the concerned stakeholders (Cramer, 2012). For instance, if an organization realizes a breach in its security protocols or vulnerable occurrences in a product, the consumers or clients should be notified promptly to put mechanisms for defensive purposes. The disclosure extent sometimes sparks a lot of debate in terms of...