LEGAL & ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF ICT SYSTEMS

Presenters: BEATRICE A. OCHIENG’ CHRISTOPHER SOMEK

According to Merriam-Webster-online, ethics is the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation

Likewise, Kesar and Rogerson (1998), refer 'ethics' to a code or set of principles by which people live and involve a process of self-reflection.

The definition mentions "moral duty", "obligation" and "self-reflection", indicating that it's not enough to simply know the difference between good and bad, but that your decisions and actions should be ethically correct, and that you have a responsibility to do so.

Law -the principles and regulations established in a community by some authority and applicable to its people, whether in the form of legislation or of custom and policies recognized and enforced by judicial decision (dictionary.com).

A law can be legally enforced, usually also specifying the penalties that can be imposed on those found to have broken the law. Only a judge or a jury can decide whether a law has been broken.

Ethics is often organized into a Code of Ethics for professionals or for members of a professional organization, are principles by which members of the profession or professional organization agree to act or behave.

The penalty for breaching the Code of Ethics is usually limited to termination of membership (expulsion from the organization), unless the Code of Ethics is also regulated by law.

Computer ethics has its roots in 1940s from work by Norbert Wiener but his works were ignored till 1970s.

Computer ethics as defined by Maner is the field of study that examines ethical problems aggravated, transformed or created by computer technology.

Abuse of electronic messaging-Today we have seen a rise of email hoaxes, spam and pestering mobile messages. We all receive email forwards some are of promotional nature which promise you to be rewarded if you forward the email to a certain number of people and a certain email. Recently we also had the circulation of an SMS alerting people not to receive calls allegedly from a red number. Whether it’s for good purposes or ill-intended, people have surely gone overboard in electronic messaging.

Anonymity -one can use an assumed name or an alias instead of real name. When on the net ,you may not know who you are associating with.

Cultural effects - The rapid growth of ICT does not only provide us with different ways of working, playing and thinking but also presents challenges to our moral & cultural values.

ICT has changed the way we talk, affected our privacy, human rights & integrity. For example internet users are exposed to form of communication called flaming.

Flaming is writing on-line messages that use obscene or dirty language.

These free flow of immoral information has negatively influenced the behaviour of both young and old in society.

Forgery - People with eroded integrity have used computers as a tool to accomplish their vices.

For example where a person would use a computer to forge certificates, passports and other documents.

This means that the person is cheating and therefore his/her moral integrity has been compromised.

Invasiveness- ICT has made it easier to perform some activities and to some extent changing the very nature of society, even our understanding of what it means to be human.

Mansell (2007) notes that new and different forms media have emerged based on ICT infrastructure and include:

text and video blogs, Internet radio and television, real time news sites with individualized feeds, podcasting and web portals among others.

New ways of interacting e.g. email, online forums, virtual chat, web cams, peer-to-peer file sharing, and online multiplayer games

Also mobile telephone infrastructure, as well as Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoiP),

With all these, the possibilities for ICT mediated sociality seem almost endless.

Discriminative / not all-inclusive - ICT technologies bring out a service in relation to how the originator of the technology thought it out. A good example is an ATM machine which assumes a particular type of person in front of it.

It assumes a person that is able to see the screen, read it, remembers and enter a pin code, and so on. Questions is, what about those who can’t do that?

Cyber morality - The growth of interactions in cyberspace raises moral concerns particularly in relation to the distribution of pornographic materials involving adults, children, and even babies through the internet. Through the internet one can view pornographic materials that affect moral values negatively.

Virtual sex has also become a boom business partly driving internet growth. Digital technology has created the ultimate “safe sex” i.e. making love with sex robots is a reality now.

Totalitarianism - Ryan (2008) notes that the Internet can be a gift to totalitarian states. He argues that with the Internet a government has access and control over an unimaginable amount of information and since information is power, such governments can deny their people their power.

Harder to find criminals - Distributors of illegal materials in the digital world can easily use false identities and often wipe their traces clean. Catching this people becomes harder since one has to incorporate assistance from different people and in most cases of global nature.

Artificial intelligence - Hamelink (2000) argues that AI not only attempts to replicate human brain capacity in digital systems, but also tries to find forms of man/machine symbiosis that enlarge the problem-solving capacities of both human beings and machines.

It’s hard to make an expert system be liable for harmful choices it might make.

This is an issue of concern because as humans we have a need to seek some form of retribution for evil deeds conducted by the members of a community.

The threat to human dignity-Weizenbaum (1976) makes the crucial distinction between deciding and choosing. Deciding is a computational activity, something that can ultimately be programmed.

He notes that it is the capacity to choose that ultimately makes us human. Choice, however, is the product of judgment, not calculation. Comprehensive human judgment is able to include non-mathematical factors such as emotions.

He argues that AI technology should not be used to replace people in positions that require respect and care for instance customer service.

However the trend of late is to apply AI even in such areas e.g. the telephone-based interactive voice response systems – Dial 100.

Such raises questions of how much respect to human dignity are we willing to loose in order to let technology serve our purpose.

Computer crime - any criminal act that has been committed using a computer as the principal tool.

Or all crimes where a computer has been the object, subject or instrument of a crime.

include hacking/cracking, software piracy, computer viruses, computer fraud, e.t.c.

◦Computer hacking - trying without permission to enter computer systems by breaking through security measures.

ICT technologies have made it easier via a number of downloadable programs, which scan weaknesses in computer systems and others which break into the systems.

Can lead to a great deal of damage if not contained.

Computer crime

◦ Piracy - theft of commercially available software, movies among others through illegal copying through counterfeiting and distribution of their imitation or unauthorized versions of software products.

Piracy also occurs when someone makes more copies than permitted, or

when he or she borrows a copy of a program from someone else and uses it without permision.

Computer crime

Today we have an increased vulnerability to piracy due to advances in technology and though we have different kinds of software protection, with sufficient effort it is always possible to bypass or "crack" the protection still using ICT technologies.

Computer fraud – describes diverse class of electronic crimes that involve some form of theft of electronic information so as to do harm mostly of monetary gains to the perpetrators. Include

Electronic eavesdropping – the act of electronically intercepting conversations without the knowledge or consent of at least one of the participants. Sometimes also called phishing.

Offering bogus products or services over the public computer network e.g. the Internet.

Theft of electronic payment information and using it for shopping online.

Computer crime

◦ Computer virus - a program which reproduces itself.

It may attach to other programs, it may create copies of itself (as in companion viruses). It may damage or corrupt data, change data, or degrade

the performance of your system by utilizing resources such as memory or disk space.

◦ Examples include: Boot sector computer virus, Master Boot Record (MBR) computer virus, File infector computer virus and Macro computer virus

Computer crime

Academic Theft-Today’s student has been termed as a “copy and paste” student as far as term papers is concerned. This arises due to the ease in which people can access electronic documents and get information to use it for their own purpose without acknowledging the source. This makes up the process popularly known as plagiarism - where a researcher refers to another person’s work as theirs without acknowledging the author.

Theft of Intellectual property - Intellectual property refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce. Includes:

◦ Industrial property, which includes patents (inventions), trademarks, industrial designs, and geographic indications of source.

◦ Copyright, which includes literary and artistic works such as novels, poems and plays, films, musical works, artistic works such as drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures, and architectural designs.

With the advent of ICT, intellectual property has been hardest hit since people have had easier ways of stealing from others and registering the ideas as their own.

A good example is the Kikoy patent that was whisked by a firm in UK and they registered as their own with a fully fledged website for it.

Privacy - Privacy is the claim of individuals to be left alone, free from surveillance or interference from other individuals or organizations including the state.

Governments have different legal instruments relating to different aspects of privacy e.g. defamation, copyright, trespass, etc.

Characteristics of computer operations that might pose potential threat to privacy1. Computer based record information systems where

retention of data is done.2. They can make data easily and quickly available

from many different points3. They make it possible for data to be transferred

quickly from one information system to another4. The data is stored, processed and often transmitted

in a form that is not otherwise intendedSuch complicate the issue of privacy even further.

Inter-territorial disputes – Johnson and Post (1998) argue that law enforcement can problematic in the special environment of cyberspace because:

1. it be difficult to locate an internet user within any specific territorial jurisdiction and

2. the global nature of the internet decreases the likelihood that the parties to online disputes will be subject to control by the same territorial law enforcement entities.

◦ This creates a problem for the application of state law to Internet transactions e.g. defamation, hate speech, intellectual property among others.

◦ Consider the difficulties faced by state B trying to prosecute an individual resident in state A for material on the Internet that is illegal in state B but lawful in state A.

Ryan M. D. 2008, The Challenge of Morality on the Internet, Associated Content. Viewed 29/10/2010, Available at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/586175/the_challenge_of_morality_on_the_internet.html?cat=9

Weizenbaum J. 1976. Computer power and human reason: from judgment to calculation, W. H. Freeman, San Francisco.

Mansell R. (ed.) 2007. The Oxford handbook of information and communication technologies. Oxford University Press, New York

Hamelink C. J. 2000. The ethics of cyberspace. SAGE, London

Kesar and Rogerson (1998) Developing Ethical Practices to Minimize Computer Misuse, Social Science Computer Review 16, no. 3 (fall 1998): 240-251. Reprinted in Computers and Ethics in the Cyberage, pp218-232

Kitchener, K S (2000). Foundations of ethical practice, research, and teaching in psychology. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

law. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved November 02, 2010, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/law

What is Computer Ethics (n.d.) Retrieved November 02, 2010, from http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/BPL_Images/Content_store/Sample_chapter/9781855548442/CEAC01.pdf

Johnson D. R. and Post D. G. (1998) The New 'Civic Virtue' of the Internet: A Complex Systems Model for the Governance of Cyberspace. Published in:The Emerging Internet (1998 Annual Review of the Institute for Information Studies) (C. Firestone, ed. 1998). Viewed on 3/11/2010 at http://www.temple.edu/lawschool/dpost/Newcivicvirtue.html