The world is rapidly changing as a result of the advancing face of the information technology sector. Developments are being observed every day as people try to improve the global delivery and access to information. Following the massive benefits that Information Technology has to users of the technology, caution must be taken to ensure that ethical problems that accompany the developing sector of technology are governed accordingly.
Ethics refer to a set of moral principles, that define values relating to human behavior, in line with rightness and wrongness of given actions as well as to the goodness and wellness lines of such motives and actions. They are defined by accountability, responsibilities and liability. The main unethical issues that go in hand with information technology include; inaccuracy, property interference, inadequate privacy as well as inaccessibility to information (Salehnia, 2002).
Privacy refers to being free from intrusion of once information. Users of information technology should have the identity of their information private and free from interference by any individual or company (Schultz, 2006). Entry to ones system should only be allowed to the owner.
As a reliable source of development in the society, information technology is supposed to be defined by accuracy and reliability. This is the aptitude of the structure to give the anticipated information.
Information technology systems should be treated with all due respect as owner’s property. This means that there should be no sharing of systems among parties (Salehnia, 2002). As a property, it is protected by certain property rights and rules, which are well defined by the owner of the system.
Information technology systems should be ready to have full access to information. Inaccessibility to information means that they should be ready to adopt any change or advancement in the technology sector.
However, there are solutions that may be implemented to ensure that these unethical issues are prevented as well as managed if they occurred (Salehnia, 2002). Each of the possible methods is unique and may play a significant task in the elimination of these technological issues.
The first policy that may be employed to prevent these problems is the development of expertise. This refers to the intensive training for individuals to the proper understanding of information technology as well as the problems associated to the technology.
The second policy is the development of information policies. These are rules that govern information in a system. For example, a privacy protected information system may be developed to guarantee the administrator of certain information system security of the system (Salehnia, 2002).
The third policy may be to develop a strategy fend off privacy critics and federal government legislation (Salehnia, 2002). This ensures the information system is free from interference by individuals as well as the government.
A well coordinated industry wide response to claims system may also be implemented as the fourth policy to protect unethical issues in information technology (Schultz, 2006). This may defeat the challenge since there are many people fighting a given issue which may be caused by one person.
The fifth policy may be the development of huge databases that would aid in tracking individual behavior online. This would govern the behavior of any authorized party on the system (Schultz, 2006). It would ensure that the system is always updated with the right information.
The last policy may be the development of software to protect information for individuals. With software guarded information systems, it would be extremely difficult for hackers and other unauthorized parties to interfere with the system (Schultz, 2006).
Despite the existence of massive unethical issues in the information technology sector, these problems can be solved. They may be eliminated through employment of exclusively protected information systems to govern accessibility of information by unauthorized parties.
References
Salehnia, A. (2002). Ethical issues of information systems. Hershey: IRM Press.
Schultz, R. A. (2006). Contemporary issues in ethics and information technology. Hershey, PA: IRM Press.
