Ethical-Decisions: Data Security and Privacy Protection Issues

This report discusses data security and ethical issues related to personal information of citizens. It explains the ethical decision-making process with the help of moral philosophies. The report also highlights the laws and regulations for personal information of citizens.

Running Head: ETHICAL-DECISIONS 0
Ethical-decisions
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Ethical-Decisions 1
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Background information..................................................................................................................2
Moral Theories.................................................................................................................................2
Consequentialism.........................................................................................................................3
Kantian Deontologism.................................................................................................................3
Natural Law..................................................................................................................................3
Virtue Ethics................................................................................................................................3
Ethical Issues...................................................................................................................................3
Ethical Decision...........................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................4

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Introduction
Privacy, trust, and data security are intertwined according to ethics and laws. Personal
information is so important for a person. It cannot be used by anyone without the information to
that person. It is an ethical thing to secure personal information to every person. Privacy
protection provisions rely on trust. Security providers are provided grantee to their data.
Violation of data security is also a crime, as per the security laws (DesJardins, 2014).
This report will explain about the data security issues and ethical issues related to the personal
information of citizens. Privacy of personal data is a right of a person. This report will describe
about the personal information of one million Australian citizens added to giant marketing
database without any information to them. In the later section of this report, it will explain about
ethical decision making with the help of moral philosophies. Privacy advocates are disappointed
from data breaches. Public sector organizations are authorized to access personal data and they
are having control on that data (Bagshaw, 2019).
Background information
Australian peoples are provides their data to the electoral board for voting. It is a process of
government to collect data of citizens for voting. All the Australians are registered on the
electoral roll system for voting at different levels. In addition, more than one million name and
addresses of Australians have in electoral roll system. Thereafter, that data is passed to marketing
giants without any information to them. That was not ethical as per the laws and regulations
(Chen & Zhao, 2012).
According to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that illion, Global Data, AXCIOM and
Experian are having access of Electoral Roll databases, as they are prescribed authorities in
Australia. They all have their secondary businesses in which they used data for data analytics for
business with the full compliance with the privacy act. They are highly strict to do not use the
electoral commission data for marketing purposes (Crane & Matten, 2016).

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Moral Theories
Ethics is a having a huge role in philosophy theories that uses to define about how person actions
can be judged as right or wrong for a particular critical situation. Anyone may make thier ethical
judgments, which are based on our experiences.
Source: (http://www.iibmindialms.com, 2019)
Ethics are based on the different theories (De George, 2011). They are divided in four classes,
which are Consequentialism, Kantian Deontologism, Natural Law, and Virtue Ethics. These are
also described as:
Consequentialism
This theory is applied for the social work and it classify about the right and wrong action for
particular situation. Utilitarianism is a common form of consequentialism, that everyone can
perform his or her best for a situation (Kizza, 2007). It is a based on social works in which
human may make their decisions for social motive.
Kantian Deontologism
It is depend on that particular critical condition, the right or wrong actions of some acts are
independent of the consequences.

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Natural Law
It is based on the behavior or nature of a person for a particular situation. Human beings can take
their decisions according to their capabilities for a situation ( Lopez, 2013).
Virtue Ethics
Virtue ethics has two different approaches for managing virtue of a person in particular situation.
The first approach to virtue ethics is that there are different traits, which are appropriate for a
particular role. Second approach is that focuses on their integration for right reasons. These
actions can be taken by the depth and breadth of experiences from thier society (Meffert, 2009).
Ethical Issues
If anyone use personal information without any knowledge then it is a crime as well as it breaks
the trust of particular organization. It is not ethical. Thus, laws and regulations are created for
preventions of such types of things (Weiss, 2014). In the above scenario, personal information
cannot be used by anyone without the prior knowledge for any purpose. Australians citizens are
requested to no longer have to register on the electoral roll. Parliament passed a direct enrolment
laws in 2012 in which Australians not provide their details to electoral roll. Personal data is
required security at private sectors as well as public sector organizations. (Zharova & Alin,
2017).
Ethical Decision
Australian government is already taken decision about such type of scenario in 2012. According
to (Bagshaw, 2019), Electoral data is used for track offenders and suspects through Australian
Federal Police, Investments commission, Australian Security and Director of Public
Prosecutions. However, Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) website is mention about the
penalty up to 1000 penalty units, which is equivalent to $210000. Electoral Commission has put
strict limits on access of data, which is allowed to members of Parliament, public health
program, political parties, and researchers (Zharova & Alin, 2017).
Utilitarianism theory is applied in this scenario because of social issue. Sharing of public data is
a social issue and it should be avoided from authorized persons. There are some communities,
which are responsible for the data security. Ethics can stops such types of mistakes by human

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beings. Hackers are doing this in a unethical way. Thus, they are punishing for these incidents
(LEE, et al., 2016).
Decision-making quality can be developed though leadership and other skills. Self-awareness is
helping to take such type of decisions. People can secure their data at particular point. In
addition, government is already having thier personal data in their databases. Therefore, it is the
responsibility of those departments that public data is secured at their level and do not use that
for marketing purposes (Ritter, 2006).
Businesses are having different purposes for their growth and they require many data for data
analytics but it in good in an ethical way, otherwise it is against the laws (Rossouw & Vuuren,
2017).
Political parties can have access of electoral commission database but they cannot use that data
for marketing purposes or others. That data is a public property and no one can use them for
personal benefits (Shinde & Chokhandre, 2016).
Australian business can use that data for social help but not for personal benefits. However, these
data is not having any banking information. They can take that data for researches, which is
beneficial for the public (Trevino & Nelson, 2016).
Cloud computing services are providing data security and cyber security. Thus, public sectors
can make an eye on their data from any type of breaches from their databases for personal uses
(Yan, et al., 2017).
Conclusion
It is concluded from above sections of this report that, personal data is not shared with anyone
from public sector organizations, such as Electoral Commission. This report has discussed about
the laws and regulations for personal information of citizens. For an example, Electoral
Commission has limited the access of database for different departments and they can take
against data breaches as a penalty.
There are different laws and regulations, which are uses for the punishment, but moral
philosophies are in favor of data protection. Data security is necessary as well as ethics are also

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required for preventions of data breaches. There are many businesses, which are requires data of
different peoples for marketing that will provide business to particular firm. Therefore, they are
taking data from different sources with pay or without pay.
Finally, it is concluded that Electoral commission should strict on the data breaches and no one
case use their data for marketing purposes. It is a serious issue in front of Australian government
that they face data breaches from the government databases.

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References
Lopez, D., 2013. Data security. Data Science Journal, 10 08, 12(1), pp. 69-74.
Bagshaw, E., 2019. Details of 1 million Australians added to giant marketing database without
their knowledge. [Online]
Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/details-of-1-million-australians-added-to-
giant-marketing-database-without-their-knowledge-20190125-p50tnz.html
[Accessed 26 January 2019].
Chen, D. & Zhao, H., 2012. Data security and privacy protection issues in cloud computing.
International Conference on Computer Science and Electronics Engineering, 1(1), pp. 647-651.
Crane, . A. & Matten, D., 2016. Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and
sustainability in the age of globalization.. London: Oxford University Press.
De George, R. T., 2011. Business ethics.. New Delhi: Pearson Education India..
DesJardins, . J. R., 2014. An introduction to business ethics.. 4 ed. New york:
McGraw-Hill/Irwin..
http://www.iibmindialms.com, 2019. Ethical theories Framework. [Online]
Available at: http://www.iibmindialms.com/library/human-resources-management/ethics-in-
business/ethical-theories-framework/
[Accessed 26 January 2019].
Kizza, J. M., 2007. Ethical and social issues in the information age. UK: Springer..
LEE, W. W., ZANKL, W. & CHANG, H., 2016. An Ethical Approach to Data Privacy
Protection. Isaca Journal.
Meffert, J. J., 2009. Ethics? Morals? Values?. Clinics in dermatology, 27(4), pp. 327-330.
Ritter, B. A., 2006. Can business ethics be trained? A study of the ethical decision-making
process in business students.. Journal of Business Ethics, 68(2), pp. 153-164.
Rossouw, D. & Vuuren, L. V., 2017. Business ethics.. London: Oxford University Press..
Shinde, . A. & Chokhandre, . S., 2016. Online Votes and Fund analysis for political parties with
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165.
Trevino, L. K. & Nelson, K. A., 2016. Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it
right.. New York: John Wiley & Sons..

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Weiss, J. W., 2014. Business ethics: A stakeholder and issues management approach.. London:
Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Yan, Z., Deng, R. H. & Varadharajan, V., 2017. Cryptography and data security in cloud
computing. Elsevier, 53(1), p. 3.
Zharova, A. K. & Alin, V. M., 2017. The use of Big Data: A Russian perspective of personal
data security. Computer Law & Security Review, 33(4), pp. 482-501.