Impacts of Technology on Privacy: An Ethical Perspective

This paper discusses the impacts of technology on privacy from a socio-ethical perspective, with special emphasis on implications for the information profession. It also addresses the ethical norms applicable to such ethical issues and provides practical guidelines for information professionals to handle these problems.

Running Head: ETHICS PAPER
Ethics Paper
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
The management ethics is completely related to the social responsiveness of a particular
firm. It is the discipline which deals with right or wrong, god or bad or obligation and moral
duty. It is the standard behaviour which guides the managers in their particular works. It can be
rather referred to as the set of moral principles which govern the actions of the people in a group.
The business ethics is an application of the ethical principles to the relationships of the business
along with the activities (Brey, 2017).The social responsibilities when achieved by the managers
are considered to be done ethically since they are aware of the right and the wrong. The ethical
dilemma on the other hand occurs when there is a decision-making issue. It is between two of the
moral imperatives none of which is preferable and acceptable. The complexity of the issue
initiates when there is a situational conflict. It is also referred to as a moral philosophy where the
ethical dilemmas can be properly invoked (Chan, 2016). It helps to refute a moral code or ethical
system for improving and resolving the paradox. The aim of this paper is to make people think
about the potential ethical dilemma one may face during the managerial duty. In this paper, I
will describe my own opinion on a recent event of International management nature from an
ethical perspective. The paper will primarily focus on Technology and Privacy and extend on it.
Discussion
In this paper, I will try to assess the impacts of technology on privacy of people.
Therefore, I will discuss it from the socio-ethical perspective giving special emphasis on
implications for the information profession. We are living in the information age which can also
be referred to as the era of economic activities based on information (Jasanoff, 2016). This is
because of the growth of technology. The features of this era is that there is a rise in the
knowledge workers and it is also a world that is more open in terms of communication and the

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internationalization too. It is a paradigm shift that initiates new juridical and ethical problem. It
is associated with the issues as right to information, right to privacy. This has been done because
of the elaboration on the free flow of information along with the protection on the owners of
intellectual property. I believe that a person’s ethical actions can easily be descried in terms of
his/her actions performed in the criterion of what is considered as good. It connects with the
question of whatever is good or bad in the area of human actions. The purpose of ethics is to
support people in behaving honourably and attaining few fundamental goods which make people
fully human.
Technology has huge impact on gathering, storage and retrieval of information. This is
the reason behind its accessibility or inaccessibility along with its manipulation of information.
It develops the need for wider and simultaneous information access. Through its implications, it
has become easy to access the private information of a person (Potthast, 2015). In an electric
format, a particular person can be easily excluded from required information through different
security measures as password. In the information process, the usage of technology is apparent
to be an ethical neutral. Technology is a value laden process that has changed the status of a
document having accompanied the ethical implications. It further refers to the information
manipulation through the technological means.
The influences of technology on people’ privacy can be manifested in different areas. It
can happen through the electronic monitoring of people in a certain workplace. It connects
people to the personal information. The organizations justify such usage of technology by
revealing that it is for enhancement of production (Lucivero, 2016). It has also been found out
that ethical problem in the use of technologies have been generated due to the usage of such
devices in the workplace. Another area is the reading of E-mail messages. It poses an ethical

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issue related to the private communication of a particular person. Technology has made it
possible to intercept the E-mail messages. The messages are mainly intercepted by the
organizations for checking whether their official facility us being used for private reasons or not.
One of the major threats is hacking which interrupts the privacy through breaking into the
computer systems (Shea, 2019). It correlates with the shift in the ethical values along with
emergence of cyberpunk. The motto behind this is “ information wants to be free”.
As far as the socio-economic effect is concerned, it can be said that introduction of
technology in the protection of privacy has led to questioning of personal dignity. Technology
has been considered as a growing threat to privacy instead of being the solution. People have
been found to be quite frightful of its use for processing the private information (Sanchez, Taylor
& Bing-Jonsson, 2017). It has become a bigger threat for the telecommunication organizations
that trade the person-related information. Since the world of technology is changing, I believe
that legislation on such privacy protection is falling behind.
I would further like to relate it with the ethical norms applicable to such ethical issues.
These kinds of ethical issues can be addressed through the instruments of measurement. It can
be seen through the norms of truth, freedom and human rights. Truth is referred to as an ethical
norm having dual application. It guides the professionals about the accuracy and factuality of
handling private information. Regarding freedom, it can be commented that a particular person
has freedom to make his/her own choice. Therefore, others should not intrude the choice of
privacy (Ladikas et al., 2015). The human right is another norm that is associated with freedom.
When the norm of human rights is applied to privacy, every person has the “ right to privacy”.
The human right can easily protect individual from unlawful inferences of the society.

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However, since we are deeply immersed in the era of technology, we can address such
ethical issues through following few guidelines: The information professional should
acknowledge the client’ right to control private information. From the managerial perspective I
can say that norm of freedom should be prioritized. The client should have the access to all types
of personal information which are to be handled by the information professional (Korhonen,
Nordman & Eriksson, 2017). The client will receive the opportunity of verifying information
accuracy. The personal and private information of a person should be merged into a separate
database when necessary.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be said that technology has occupied an important position in the
processing of information. From the ethical perspective, such privacy related issues can be
addressed by focusing on the norms such as right to information, and right to freedom. It is
relevant that the information professional should handle these problems by following the
practical guidelines. The problems can be easily handled by formulating the norms such as truth,
freedom and the human rights.

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