Demand of the question Introduction. What is Information Ethics? Body. Discuss the significance of Information Ethics in present times. Conclusion. Way forward. |
Information ethics is a field of applied ethics that addresses the uses and abuses of information, information technology, and information systems for personal, professional, and public decision making. The impact of emerging technologies on the daily lives of citizens cannot be underestimated as more and more people around the world interact with information and communication technology and generate and acquire information. Information ethics is concerned with ethical, legal and societal aspects of using information and information and communication technologies.
Significance of Information Ethics in present times:
- Increased risks: In the era of digitisation, cyber-risks have increased with increased penetration of the internet. It is important to follow information ethics while dealing with someone’s information in order to prevent misuse of the information and data.
- Digital piracy: Illegal downloading has also caused some ethical concerns and raised the question whether digital piracy is equivalent to stealing or not.
- State surveillance: Concerns about state control or private ownership of individual activity on the Internet opens up a whole series of serious ethical problems. The most significant risk with the use of the technology is state surveillance. China’s reported use of technologies for surveillance in Xinjiang is such an example.
- Copyright issues: Increasing digital penetration has raised issues of copyright concerns. It is a must to safeguard one’s digital property.
- Right to privacy: The Supreme Court (SC) in Justice K.S Puttaswamy vs Union of India case, declared that the right to privacy is an inherent part of the fundamental right under Article 21 of the constitution. Thus, it is important to safeguard an individual’s
- Resolving ethical dilemma: People working in intelligence agencies face ethical dilemmas at work on how to treat public data. For instance, Edward Snowden chose to go the right way by following information ethics and revealing instances of surveillance.
- Social media: Increasing advent of social media, fake news, hate propagandas etc. demand public servant to follow information ethics and put efforts to curb any act which is harmful to larger public.
By applying ethics among information technology, it will make the organization become more successful. By applying the ethics also, we could determine the right and wrong of an individual action. But, it depends on the situation that is faced by the people. Therefore, with ethics, information technology can avoid unethical actions like unauthorized access, disturbing people privacy hacking the information etc.