CHAPTER 3: Ethics and Privacy

Define ethics, list and describe the three fundamental tenets of ethics. and describe the four categories of ethical issues related to information technology.

Ethics refers to the principles of right and wrong that individuals use to make choices that guide their behavior.
Fundamental tenets of ethics include responsibility, accountability, and liability. Responsibility means that you accept the consequences of your decisions and actions. Accountability refers to determining who is responsible for actions that were taken. Liability is a legal concept that gives individuals the right to recover th e damages done to them by other individuals, organizations, or systems. The major ethical issues related to IT are privacy, accuracy, property (including intellectual property), and access to information. Privacy may be violated when data are held in databases or transmitted over networks. Privacy policies that address issues of data collection, data accuracy, and data confidentiality can help organizations avoid legal problems.

Identify three places that store personal data, and for each one, discuss at least one personal threat to the privacy of the data stored there.

Privacy is the right to be left alone and to be free of unreasonable personal intrusions. Threats to privacy include advances in information technologies, electronic surveillance personal information in databases, Internet bulletin boards, newsgroups, and social networking sites. 71hc privacy threat in Internet bulletin boards, newsgroups, and social networking sites is that you insight post too much personal information that many unknown people can see.