Code Of Ethics For Internet Of Things
In this 21st modern century, Internet of things (IOT) can make individuals life easier. However, there are many ethical problems associated with internet of things. IOT has a risk of safety and privacy. As a project manager, I believe security and privacy are two major problems customer might face in the future considering social, political and ethical issues.
According to the article “The Atlantic” published by Kaveh Waddell, the malware called Mirai took over poorly secured webcams and DVRs, and used them to disrupt internet access across the United States. However, author is not sure about who is responsible. He questioned if manufacturers could be liable for the damages. While developing a software, I as a Project manager should be aware of such attacks and I believe my company should eliminate such risks so that no customers will face any problems in the future.
Waddell added that there’s no real legal framework that would hold manufacturers responsible for critical failures that harm others. Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) As a Project Manager, I should be aware about social responsibilities. Diomidis Spinellis in his article “The Social Responsibility of Software Development ” says “ As a software developer, for better or worse (it’s up to you), you’re building the fabric of our society, tomorrow’s world. You’re therefore directly responsible for averting some of those small imperceptible steps to future nightmares. ” I believe that if there is any damages caused by the software developed by my company, I will be responsible for the damages. I believe that our company should have corporate social responsibilities (CSR) so that employees can make a business decisions ethically. Five corporate social responsibilities our company will possess are described below:For any business to be in top level, it is necessary to gain goodwill of the society. According to the article “Software defined Privacy” published by IEEE, “Fear of privacy and security issues as well as a lack of control over own data remain the biggest obstacles towards a wider adoption of Cloud Computing. Article presented a novel concept called “Software Defined Privacy” which allows easy orchestration of existing tools to describe and enforce privacy requirements of an IaaS Cloud Customer. We are going to implement similar concept in our software so that our customer will be no more fearful about losing their personal information which will help to gain goodwill from the community. According to the article, published by Edward Amoroso in “Recent Progress in Software Security”, Amoroso said that there has been change in Advanced malware detection, software process maturity, software review and scanning, runtime software controls. As a Project manager, it is my responsibility to ensure that we are updated with latest improved software which will help to operates business consistently.
George W. Reynold in “Ethics in Information technology” believes that ethical companies are more profitable over the long term as compared to unethical companies. I agree with Reynold that good ethics can lead to good business result. Hence, our company will have Good business practices establishing friendly relationship with our customers. It is necessary to protect the company from legal action. In order to protect our company from legal action, we will strictly we follow all the rules and regulations. Our software ensures that no any information will be shared to third part without the consent of our customers. Our software will automatically provide the list of applications that are tracking our user.
Reynolds gave the example of google paying fine nearly around 22. 5 billion and says that “bad publicity associated with the incident is much more impactful than the fine in bringing about change at google”. Our company will closely observe this incident and try to avoid unfavorable publicity. Furthermore, we will establish good relationship with press/media. Furthermore, we will track information available in different social media and website to ensure that no false information has been provided. This can help to reduce unfavorable publicity. Ethical consideration in decision making/ Code of ethicsThere are certain ethical considerations in decision making. Our problem statement is to gain trust from costumers regarding their privacy. Third parties are stealing/receiving the data from various software users. Examining news feeds in social media, we see the functions and principles at play — but not always in a manner compliant with the ethical framework. According to the article published by Dawn E Schrader and Dipayan Ghosh in the article “Proactively Protecting against the singularity: ethical decision making”, “There often exists a lack of awareness on the consumers’ part, which leads to distrust; dialog and communicative respect are missing, and opportunities for accountabilityof the AI system and respect for the integrity of the user are lacking. We argue that due to the lack of ethical action on the part of many developers of AI systems in the context of social media platforms, users are at risk of unintended and unethical breach of privacy and data security as well as disrespect for persons’ sense of self and their views or emotions. ” According to the article “Migrating Complex Event Processing in the Web of things”, Jorge Fonseca says, “Through the IoT and Internet applications integration emerges the Web Of Things (WoT)”.
We as a software developers have to develop an applications or additional tool that can let our consumers know about the several other software or applications that might steal personal information of our clients including several websites. It is our responsibility to keep our users safe from online web attack to our customers. We can provide awareness through our own built in application (alternative). Our system should provide information about all the updates we do in our software so that our clients can know what changes we have made in the software. Our company should provide the service that we have promised to provide to the users in the agreements and strictly implement the decisions. It can be beneficial to conduct survey once in a while about our software so that we can know what our client thinks about our software. We can evaluate results after hearing the feedback from the users.
Similarly, our company should possess high standards of practice and ethical behavior. Similarly, trust and respect from Ethical Theories. Main ethical approaches our company will possess are: common good approach, fairness approach and utilitarian approach.
Utilitarian approach: According to Reynolds, one should choose the action or policy that has best overall consequences who are affected directly or indirectly. We ensure that our software is not harming any customers in any way possible. Similarly, it is our responsibility to ensure that customers are using all the services provide to them in the software.
Fairness approach: Our software will be easy to be used. With minimal knowledge, user will be able to use our software. Reynolds says “if the intended goal of an action or policy is to provide benefits to a target group, other affected groups may consider the decision unfair”. We will ensure no any groups will be discriminated. All groups will have equal access to use the software and the functions included in them.
Common good approach: As a Project Manager, I want to provide the optimal facilities to all users including rich and poor customers. Restricting users from using all the services available in the software will not be beneficial for certain users. All users will have secured and equal access to use the benefits provided under the software. Our software will treat all people same.
Regulations and /or Acts
Along with increasing demand of software, there has been increase in illegal access to sensitive information of the individual. It is important to mention that the use of personal devices by users also poses threat to enterprises as these devices, unbeknown to their users, may have capabilities to record information from the environment and thus can be exploited. Several regulations have been made focusing on Internet of things.
Electronic Communication Privacy Act (ECPA)
According to the article published by networkworld, ECPA allows government to obtain private information including social media. As a software developer, its questionable if it is appropriate to share users information to the government. According to the article published by Elisa Bertino in “Data Privacy fot IOT systems”, It is important to mention that the use of personal devices by users also poses threat to enterprises as these devices, unbeknown to their users, may have capabilities to record information from the environment and thus can be exploited.
Homes are becoming smarter due to the use of Internet of Things. According to the article, “Internet of Things” published by James Halliday and Rebekah Lam, “The Australian Consumer Law (ACL) offers consumers protection when they purchase IoT products and in some cases represents an indirect way of enforcing privacy and security compliance. The ACL is administered by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which (in addition to its general enforcement powers) has special powers under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) (CCA) to promote competition within the Australian telecommunications industry and ensure consumers' interests are protected. The ACL establishes general standards of business conduct and contains a range of consumer protections, the most important of which are the provisions prohibiting a person in trade or commerce from engaging in misleading or deceptive conduct, or conduct which is likely to mislead or deceive. Where an IoT provider makes representations to a consumer about the attributes of an IoT product (e. g. quality, security, or reliability), it must therefore take care to ensure the representations can be substantiated to avoid falling foul of the misleading or deceptive conduct provisions of the ACL. ”
