The Ethical Issues In Information Technology Management

Information technology in the current world can provide many advantages but one should be careful with it as well because it can create new ways to invade the privacy and use that information in various ways to exploit any individual. So, there should be some ethics, which are basically the principles of right and wrong that any individual can use to make choices or decisions. More importantly, in information systems, it is essential to question every course of action before moving forward. In an information society, the responsibility, liability and accountability are three basic ethics. Generally, accepting all the essential costs, duties and obligations for the choices one make is referred to responsibility and who is responsible for that particular action is referred to accountability and the permissions or laws that allows the individual to recover the damages done by the systems or organizations is liability.

In the article by Simon (2000), he discussed about how the technical design of the information systems will be influenced by the ethical issues and talks about the pressure on individuals to build systems such a way that are perceived unethical. He also highlights the ethical issues related to network design and suggests that technical design cycle should include explicit consideration of ethical issues.

In the article by Jeff Smith (2000), there is an argument that it will be a misconception to relate internet as a network of individuals pursuing self-improvement. Instead, it should be a thought of high level single entity where the focus is on cooperation. The ethical focus regarding internet should involve both value-based ethical norms and the set of explicit rules that delineate injustice and determine which new behaviors are virtuous.

In the last article by Frances Grundy (2005), he illustrated about the ethical problems encountered by the software designers while developing systems. There is an argument that internet is just an forerunner of more innovative applications which gonna have even more difficult ethical issues associated with them. There is a need for better ethically educated practitioners and the practical guidance in the form of handbook to prepare for even more ethically charged information technology future.

Some of the trends that raise the ethical issues in information management include:

The use of systems to combine the data from multiple sources and create e-docs of detailed information on individuals refers to profiling.

Taking information about individuals from different sources and correlate relationships to find hidden connections that might help identify the criminals and terrorists - NORA (Non Obvious Relationship Awareness).

Also, some of the ethical dimensions of information management include information rights (privacy and freedom), data protection, property rights (intellectual property, trade secrets, copyrights and patents) and system quality.

There are more questions than answers when it comes to ethical issues in IT regarding privacy, ownership, control, accuracy and security.