ICT and Ethics

"It is a mistake to suppose that any technological innovation has a one-sided effect. Every technology is both a burden and a blessing; not either-or, but this-and-that." Neil Postman

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With globalization and advancement in the technological innovation and convergence, there exist inevitable ethical, legal and societal issues of freedom of expression, access to information, the right to privacy, intellectual property rights, and cultural diversity.

ICT, being an instrument to access, store and transmit information is a need in the society. With its rapid development globally, it has made possible a transition in information storage, processing, and dissemination; with speed, efficiency, and accuracy in human activities.

However, this has happened not without the of emergence of ethical issues in leveraging ICT. ICT and the right ethics must co-exist to integrate ICT and human values where ICT's role should advance and protect human values and not damaging them.

ICT ethics can be looked at two related areas: Information Ethics and Computer Ethics.

INFORMATION ETHICS

The information ethics is a field that concerns the moral issues arising from the development and application of information technologies. The issues are many and varied however they may be summarised as issues related to the followings:

•             Privacy 

Privacy is about the right of individual or society has to retain and not disclose their personal information. The extraction and sharing of information must be with their respective consent and  should be protected against unauthorized access.

•             Accuracy

Information must be accurate. Accurate information is error-free, complete, and relevant to the decisions that are to be based on it. Pervasive use of information has made it susceptible to misinformation. This may result in wrong decision making.

•             Property

Information is intangible. Whilst the right to property confines in the legal domain, the right to information lies more in ethical domain. Information ownership is an ownership to the intellectual property that results from individual's or corporation's creativity.   This ownership is protected by copyrights, patent and trade secret law.

•             Access

Rights on the access to information is individual's rights to obtain and use information collected or generated by others.

COMPUTER ETHICS

While using ICT, the following ethical standards, however the list is not exhaustive, must be observed:

• Comply with law and regulations and also code of practice on usage of intellectual property. This includes identifying and acknowledging the owner of the digital sources. References on the sites should be cited accordingly.

• Secure and protect all private information posted online. 

• Respect others while working online.  Be responsible when sharing digital materials.

• Be wary and understand the risks involve when doing online transactions.

• Observe all health and safety guidelines while using ICT tools.