[Answered] What are cyber-ethics? Discuss its relevance in modern times.

Cyberethics is the philosophic study of ethics pertaining to computers, encompassing user behaviour and what computers are programmed to do, and how this affects individuals and society. For years, various governments have enacted regulations while organizations have defined policies about cyberethics.

Is there a need for cyber-ethics?

1. Increasing Cybercrime: Cyber-crime, hacking into people’s bank accounts and stealing their money, or defrauding people in a myriad of ways is becoming trend now. This increasing trend of cyber crime demand need of proper set of codes and rules.
2. Increasing unethical behaviour: There are many kinds of ethically or morally irresponsible behaviour, in the space opened up by the internet from actions involving people’s financial status, through hate-speech or writing regarding gender, race, culture, and a host of other morally dubious (if not constitutionally illegal).
3. Spying: Actions such as governments or corporations spying on individuals, individuals spying on governments or corporations, and so on, raise the need of cyber ethical code. A cyber ethical code would enlighten citizens about what is good or bad for them and will held government accountable for unethical actions.
4. Threat to privacy: Over 100 years later, the internet and proliferation of private data through governments and e-commerce is an area which requires a new round of ethical debate involving a person’s privacy. Privacy from an ethical and moral point of view should be central to dignity and individuality and personhood. Privacy is also indispensable to a sense of autonomy to ‘a feeling that there is an area of an individual’s life that is totally under his or her control, an area that is free from outside intrusion.’ The deprivation of privacy can even endanger a person’s health.  Individuals surrender private information when conducting transactions and registering for services.
5. Frauds: Fraud and impersonation are some of the malicious activities that occur due to the direct or indirect abuse of private information. Identity theft is rising rapidly. Public records search engines and databases are the main culprits contributing to the rise of cybercrime. Ethical business practice protects the privacy of their customers by securing information which may contribute to the loss of secrecy, anonymity, and solitude.
6. Ownership: Ethical debate has long included the concept of property. This concept has created many clashes in the world of cyberethics. One philosophy of the internet is centred around the freedom of information. The controversy over ownership occurs when the property of information is infringed upon or uncertain.
7. Intellectual property rights: The ever-increasing speed of the internet and the emergence of compression technology, opened the doors to Peer-to-peer file sharing, a technology that allowed users to anonymously transfer files to each other, previously seen on programs. Much of this, however, was copyrighted music and illegal to transfer to other users. Whether it is ethical to transfer copyrighted media is another question. Restrictions are required because companies would not invest weeks and months in development if there were no incentive for revenue generated from sales and licensing fees.
8. Digital rights management (DRM): Blind making of audio books of PDFs, allowing people to burn music they have legitimately bought to CD or to transfer it to a new computer etc. are seen as violation of the rights of the intellectual property holders, opening the door to uncompensated use of copyrighted media. Another ethical issue concerning DRMs involves the way these systems could undermine the fair use provisions of the copyright laws. The reason is that these allow content providers to choose who can view or listen to their materials making the discrimination against certain groups possible.
9. Accessibility, censorship and filtering: Accessibility, censorship and filtering bring up many ethical issues that have several branches in cyberethics. Many questions have arisen which continue to challenge our understanding of privacy, security and our participation in society. Throughout the centuries mechanisms have been constructed in the name of protection and security. Internet censorship and filtering are used to control or suppress the publishing or accessing of information. The legal issues are similar to offline censorship and filtering. Whether people are better off with free access to information or should be protected from what is considered by a governing body as harmful, indecent or illicit is a new debate.
10. Freedom of information: Freedom of information, that is the freedom of speech as well as the freedom to seek, obtain and impart information brings up the question of who or what, has the jurisdiction in cyberspace. The right of freedom of information is commonly subject to limitations dependent upon the country, society and culture concerned. Generally there are three standpoints on the issue as it relates to the internet.
    • First is the argument that the internet is a form of media, put out and accessed by citizens of governments and therefore should be regulated by each individual government within the borders of their respective jurisdictions.
    • Second, is that governments of the Industrial World have no sovereignty over the Internet.
    • Internet supersedes all tangible borders such as the borders of countries, authority should be given to an international body since what is legal in one country may be against the law in another.
11. Digital divide: An issue specific to the ethical issues of the freedom of information is what is known as the digital divide. This refers to the unequal socio-economic divide between those who have had access to digital and information technology, such as cyberspace, and those who have had limited or no access at all. This gap of access between countries or regions of the world is called the global digital divide.

Thus in modern times with concerns of privacy, spying, hacking etc where no government has control on cyber space, an international body is must based on consensus. This body should work on a cyber-ethical “code” or set of guidelines that would potentially be capable of regulating people’s behaviour on the internet.