ProductsLogo
LogoStudy Documents
LogoAI Grader
LogoAI Answer
LogoAI Code Checker
LogoPlagiarism Checker
LogoAI Paraphraser
LogoAI Quiz
LogoAI Detector
PricingBlogAbout Us
logo

ICT Professional Practice and Ethics: Cambridge Analytica Case Study

Verified

Added on  2023/03/21

|16
|3864
|61
AI Summary
This report discusses the ICT professional practice and ethics in the case study of the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. It analyzes the background of the case, the ethical issues and implications, and provides recommendations based on the ACS code of ethics.

Contribute Materials

Your contribution can guide someone’s learning journey. Share your documents today.
Document Page
ICT Professional Practice and Ethics: Cambridge Analytica Case Study
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

Secure Best Marks with AI Grader

Need help grading? Try our AI Grader for instant feedback on your assignments.
Document Page
1
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
Executive Summary
i) The most significant objective of this report is understanding about ICT professional
practice and ethics for case study of Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
ii) The specified technologies could provide major accessibility and availability of
information with telecommunications. Information and communication technology mainly
focuses on any type of communication technology after involvement of the Internet
connection, communication medium, wireless network and cell phones.
iii) A proper inclusion of systems and recommending correct and incorrect conduct concepts
is altogether termed as ethics. Every matter of value is eventually included in this particular
moral philosophy and it comprises of proper explanations about human morality. There are
six codes, which are required to understand if the situation or case scenario is ethical and
should be properly analysed.
iv) This report has clearly analysed the case study with DET and ACS code of ethics.
Document Page
2
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
Brief Background of Case Scenario.......................................................................................3
Analysing Situation with Doing Ethics Technique or DET...................................................4
What is going on?...............................................................................................................4
What are the facts?.............................................................................................................4
What are the Issues?...........................................................................................................5
Who is affected?.................................................................................................................6
What are the ethical issues as well as implications?..........................................................6
What can be done about it?................................................................................................7
What are the options?.........................................................................................................7
Which option is the best and why?....................................................................................8
Proper Analyses of Situation in respect to ICT Professional with ACS Code of Ethics.......8
Conclusions and Recommendation..........................................................................................11
References................................................................................................................................12
Document Page
3
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
Introduction
A major part of information technology, ICT is responsible for focusing on role of
any unified communications and proper integration of telecommunication as well as
computerized system with respective enterprise software, middleware, audio visual systems
and storage that can easily enable every user to access, transmit, store or manipulate
confidential information (Dutta, Geiger and Lanvin 2015). This particular technology could
even either be non ethical or ethical to understand a situation associated to any specific
organization. This report will be providing a proper discussion over professional practices
and ethical overview for ICT in the case scenario of Facebook Cambridge Analytica. In 2016,
a whistle blower, Christopher Wylie blew whistle against the wrong activities of the
organization of Cambridge Analytica (Cambridge Analytica Scandal. 2019). This report will
be providing proper analysis of this specific case study on the basis of ACS code of ethics
and DET.
Discussion
Brief Background of Case Scenario
A significant organization, Cambridge Analytica has given significant information for
president’s campaign that had enabled several targeted politics based posts on Donald Trump
in Facebook for the core purpose of influencing voting operation of people (Cambridge
Analytica Scandal. 2019). Cambridge Analytica even gathered out personal data of users by
arranging a quiz or survey, which required Facebook login to effectively complete the quiz
and hence it was being analysed that more than two lakh seventy thousand US citizens
undertook this quiz, only being data to be stolen by them.
Christopher Wylie was an ex employee in Cambridge Analytica, who had blown
whistle after revealing that there were illegal extraction of personal information or data in this

Paraphrase This Document

Need a fresh take? Get an instant paraphrase of this document with our AI Paraphraser
Document Page
4
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
organization and these data were being used to developed psychographic users’ profile and
finally to deliver every kind of pro Trump material to those users’ who came online for
attempting their arranged quiz (Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower. 2019). On the other
hand, the social networking web site, Facebook had denied each and every allegation and
stated that the respective users’ data were absolutely safe and secured and did not have any
type of issues or complexities regarding security and safety. After such distinctive allegation
by Christopher Wylie, the Chief Executive Office of the organization, Cambridge Analytica
or Alexander Nix got suspended and Mark Zuckerberg faced subsequent enquiry.
Analysing Situation with Doing Ethics Technique or DET
This above provided case scenario of Cambridge Analytica could be eventually
understood after taking into consideration of DET or doing ethics technique methodology
with proper description.
What is going on?
A data science organization, Cambridge Analytica had extracted users’ data
unethically from a quiz in Facebook to understand voting intentions for the 2016 US elections
(Dahlstrom, Walker and Dziuban 2013). During Facebook log in, it is extremely important to
provide data and as soon as username and password was provided, Cambridge Analytica had
collected them for their own personal purposes. Moreover, the respective personal data of
users’ friends were also collected by them to gain significant acquisition of data regarding the
elections of United States of America. It even highlighted the factor that they have obtained
proper access to the data of more than eighty seven lakh users’ data, which is more than three
fourth segment of the total users of Facebook in the United States of America (Bloom et al.
2014). However, a whistle blower blew up the whistle and CEO was suspended for this act.
Document Page
5
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
What are the facts?
The facts in the case study are as follows:
a) The organization of Cambridge Analytica had extracted personal information for
over eight lakh seventy thousand Facebook users within the USA to know regarding
campaign of Donald Trump.
b) It allowed targeting political posts of Facebook to influence voting intention of US
citizens (Andrade and Doolin 2016).
c) They have arranged for a quiz to extract such information in Facebook.
d) Christopher Wylie, an ex employee blew up the whistle for drawing the personal
data of users by not informing the users to manipulate voting elections.
e) After such allegation, Facebook denied the fact, however, the CEO of this
organization was suspended.
What are the Issues?
The main issues in the case scenario are as follows:
a) The first issue highlighted in this case study would be that this specific organization
had extracted personal information or other details of users to complete vote predictions in
the 2016 US elections (Tarafdar, Gupta and Turel 2013).
b) The next issue was that this organization of Cambridge Analytica had used the
social networking web site of Facebook to conduct a survey or quiz for voting and thus
gaining better results.
c) Facebook was eventually alleged for helping the organization to complete their
quiz and even enabling them in using the platform to extract sensitive data of users or friends
of those users (Von Solms and Van Niekerk 2013).
Document Page
6
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
d) The whistle blower, Christopher Wylie had highlighted this illegal data extraction
and he mentioned them in two newspapers.
e) This activity directed the message for respective political campaign of Donald
Trump so that election victory is obtained.
f) As a result, the CEOs of these two organizations of Facebook and Cambridge
Analytica were suspended (Ullah and Lai 2013).
Who is affected?
The first affected entities within this particular case study of Facebook Cambridge
Analytica data scandal would be the several citizens of the United States of America since
they did not get any scope for voting rights and justice and hence their respective personal
information as being eventually extracted in an illegal manner by not getting informed by the
organizational management of Cambridge Analytica for providing political benefits of the
several political candidates as well as the entire organization of Cambridge Analytica
(Wagner, Vollmar and Wagner 2014). The other affected entities in this case scenario of
Cambridge Analytica data scandal were any other stakeholder or customer, who were
absolutely innocent and were not involved in such illegal activities.
What are the ethical issues as well as implications?
Few distinctive and important ethical issues could be identified in the case study of
Cambridge Analytica data scandal and these ethical issues are as follows:
a) One of the most vital and significant ethical issues in the case study of Facebook
Cambridge Analytica would be that the respective personal data of over eight lakh seventy
thousand users of the social networking web site, Facebook were eventually utilized by the
senior officers of Cambridge Analytica for the core purpose of helping out subsequent
political candidates and gaining votes in 2016 elections (Tafti, Mithas and Krishnan 2013). It

Secure Best Marks with AI Grader

Need help grading? Try our AI Grader for instant feedback on your assignments.
Document Page
7
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
is absolutely non ethical since the users’ personal information must not be extracted under
any circumstance before informing the citizens.
b) The next significant ethical issue in the case study of Cambridge Analytica data
scandal is that the social networking web site, Facebook was strongly included in the
unethical act (Sun and Jeyaraj 2013). More than fifty six percentage of total US population
uses Facebook since they have trust on this particular application, although with such
unethical activity, Facebook substantially had lost most of their users.
c) Another distinctive and important ethical issue in this particular case scenario of
Facebook Cambridge Analytica would be that any political leader must be chosen on fair
votes after gaining votes from citizens and not by vandalizing ethical methodologies at any
cost. In this case scenario, similar activity was being caused and data was extracted and
vandalized without even taking consent from the users.
What can be done about it?
There are three ethical issues identified in this specific case study of Facebook
Cambridge Analytica and for these ethical issues, subsequent and relevant steps are required
to be undertaken (Roztocki and Weistroffer 2015). The facts of Christopher Wylie must have
been undertaken into consideration to subsequently ensure that this kind of activity or action
is not being repeated at any cost. Furthermore, more strict laws or options must be taken
against them.
What are the options?
There are three important options for this particular case scenario of Facebook
Cambridge Analytica and these are as follows:
a) The first and the most important option for this case scenario would be completely
shutting down the social networking web site of Facebook as well as the organization of
Document Page
8
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
Cambridge Analytica to get into involved into any kind of illegal activity or action (Dedrick,
Kraemer and Shih 2013).
b) The second important and significant option for this case scenario of Facebook
Cambridge Analytica would be highlighting the entire issue or problem and must be
eventually shown or forecasted by media in the entire world with a hope that such activity
would ever repeat itself under any circumstance.
c) The third and another vital and noteworthy option for this case scenario of
Facebook Cambridge Analytica would be eventually penalizing both the CEOs, Mark
Zuckerberg and Alexander Nix regarding their illegal as well as unethical activities of data or
information extraction (Ancker et al. 2013). Furthermore, relevant strict laws or actions are
eve needed to be taken against them for violating privacy laws.
Which option is the best and why?
From the above provided three distinctive options, the most suitable alternative for the
case scenario of Cambridge Analytica would be the third option. The two CEOs, Mark
Zuckerberg and Alexander Nix must be highly penalized and thus stricter legal actions must
be undertaken against these two, since they were absolutely non ethical in nature (Fortunati,
Pertierra and Vincent 2013). Moreover, they even did not subsequently follow the work
ethics or working rules and hence they proved that they have kept their personal choices and
preferences as top priorities, hence the third option would be appropriate for the case study.
Proper Analyses of Situation in respect to ICT Professional with ACS Code of Ethics
Cambridge Analytica could be easily and effectively analysed after proper
consideration of Australian computer society code of ethics (Marinagi, Trivellas and Sakas
2014). There are six distinctive code of ethics and these six codes are as follows:
Document Page
9
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
i) The Primacy of the Public Interest: This first as well as the foremost code of ACS
ethics would be the primacy of the public interest. Any significant organizational member
must place all the major public interests over the interests of sectional, personal and business.
This specific code of ethics subsequent states that the priority of customers must be
considered as the highest at any cost and any individual can be referred to as ethical only if he
or she follows this code of ethics. However, in this particular case scenario of Facebook
Cambridge Analytica, the respective organizational management only considered about their
own distinctive benefits and advantages, which eventually proved that they are absolutely
unethical and did not follow work ethics in any case.
ii) The Enhancement of Quality of Life: As per this significant code of ethics, any
organizational member or organization is completely responsible to enhance the entire quality
of personal and others’ lives to higher levels, for the core purpose of ensuring that all the
activities of that company is increasing overall work quality of employees, working in that
particular organization (Zhilenkov and Chernyi 2015). The main reason of this ethical view
point is that they are affected and associated with the type of work being done in the
company. When this work quality is improved, it is evident that the entire organizational
system and output would be ethical and proper. Thus the employees would be able to provide
high productivity after maintenance of ethics in their work. However, in this particular case
scenario of Facebook Cambridge Analytica, they subsequently degraded the work quality
after negatively affecting the respective security as well as privacy of users’ data. Hence,
according to this code of ethics, the case study of Facebook Cambridge Analytica was
unethical.
iii) Honesty: This is the next important and significant code of ethics for Australian
Computer Society. Any particular organizational member or organization must be extremely
honest during representation of their knowledge, services, products and skills. It eventually

Paraphrase This Document

Need a fresh take? Get an instant paraphrase of this document with our AI Paraphraser
Document Page
10
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
ensures that dishonesty is not at all tolerated within any organization under any circumstance
(Marchewka 2014). When that specific organizational member is dishonest, it is evident that
he is unethical as well. In this particular case scenario of Facebook Cambridge Analytica,
several senior officers, including the Chief Executive Officer, Alexander was found dishonest
and they did not even accept the faults, only to be claimed as non ethical in nature. Due to
this lack of honesty, the CEO even faced suspension and the brand name and reputation of
the organization was defamed in the entire world.
iv) Competence: This is the fourth subsequent and noteworthy code of ethics stated
by the Australian Computer Society. According to this code, any specific organizational
member or organization must be eventually competent and must work both diligently and
competently for their stakeholders such as customers (ACS Code of Ethics. 2019). This
particular code of ethics also makes sure that competence should be highly and properly
maintained. However, in this particular case scenario of Facebook Cambridge Analytica,
competence was highly lacked and no work was done diligently and competently, hence they
became unethical.
v) Professional Development: The fifth important and significant code of ethics
according to ACS would be professional development. The organizational member or the
company itself must increment the respective professional development for ensuring that
every employee is developing professionalism (Dahlstrom, Walker and Dziuban 2013).
However, in this particular case scenario of Facebook Cambridge Analytica, apart from their
Chief Executive Officer, Alexander also included the other staff for the core purpose of
extracting data from their respective platform of Facebook and hence proving that the entire
case scenario was unethical in nature.
Document Page
11
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
vi) Professionalism: The final important code of ethics as per the Australian
Computer Society is professionalism. This eventually refers to the fact that each and every
organizational member and company must increment major confidentiality and integrity of
data and thus maintaining respect of any other member for each other. Professionalism is
required to be maintained efficiently and hence it is highly required to provide better
effectiveness and efficiency in work place. However, in this particular case scenario of
Facebook Cambridge Analytica, the respective Chief Executive Officers of Facebook and
Cambridge Analytica, Mark Zuckerberg and Alexander Nix were extremely unprofessional
and they did not follow professionalism at any cost. Due to this factor, the case scenario was
declared as unprofessional and non ethical.
Conclusions and Recommendation
Thus, conclusion could be eventually drawn that, information and communication
technology refers to proper amalgamation of infrastructure and components that allow
modern computing. Information and communication technology mainly focuses on the
Internet enabling spheres as well as mobile enabling spheres with subsequent wireless
network. Furthermore, there is yet another significant and vital technique, Doing Ethics
Technique, which helps in analysis of situation for referring it as ethical or not. The major
aspects or characteristics of any situation is being judged on the basis of this technique. This
above report has demonstrated about proper analysis of Facebook Cambridge Analytica case
study with proper and relevant details.
A basic recommendation to the above mentioned case study after inclusion of ACS
codes of ethics and Doing Ethics Technique is undertaking strict authorized actions and laws
against the CEOs of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, Mr Alexander Nix and Mr Mark
Zuckerberg since they were illegal and unethical for this particular case scenario of
Cambridge Analytica.
Document Page
12
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS

Secure Best Marks with AI Grader

Need help grading? Try our AI Grader for instant feedback on your assignments.
Document Page
13
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
References
ACS Code of Ethics. 2019. [online]. Accessed from
https://www.acs.org.au/content/dam/acs/rules-and-regulations/Code-of-Professional-
Conduct_v2.1.pdf [Accessed on 23 May 2019].
Ancker, J.S., Silver, M., Miller, M.C. and Kaushal, R., 2013. Consumer experience with and
attitudes toward health information technology: a nationwide survey. Journal of the
American Medical Informatics Association, 20(1), pp.152-156.
Andrade, A.D. and Doolin, B., 2016. Information and communication technology and the
social inclusion of refugees. Mis Quarterly, 40(2), pp.405-416.
Bloom, N., Garicano, L., Sadun, R. and Van Reenen, J., 2014. The distinct effects of
information technology and communication technology on firm organization. Management
Science, 60(12), pp.2859-2885.
Cambridge Analytica Scandal. 2019. [online]. Accessed from
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/21/facebook-cambridge-analytica-scandal-everything-you-
need-to-know.html [Accessed on 23 May 2019].
Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower. 2019. [online]. Accessed from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXdYSQ6nu-M [Accessed on 23 May 2019].
Dahlstrom, E., Walker, J.D. and Dziuban, C., 2013. ECAR study of undergraduate students
and information technology(p. 2013). 2013.
Dedrick, J., Kraemer, K.L. and Shih, E., 2013. Information technology and productivity in
developed and developing countries. Journal of Management Information Systems, 30(1),
pp.97-122.
Document Page
14
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
Dutta, S., Geiger, T. and Lanvin, B., 2015. The global information technology report 2015.
In World Economic Forum(Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. P80-85).
Fortunati, L., Pertierra, R. and Vincent, J. eds., 2013. Migration, diaspora and information
technology in global societies. Routledge.
Marchewka, J.T., 2014. Information technology project management. John Wiley & Sons.
Marinagi, C., Trivellas, P. and Sakas, D.P., 2014. The impact of information technology on
the development of supply chain competitive advantage. Procedia-Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 147, pp.586-591.
Roztocki, N. and Weistroffer, H.R., 2015. Information and communication technology in
transition economies: An assessment of research trends. Information Technology for
Development, 21(3), pp.330-364.
Sun, Y. and Jeyaraj, A., 2013. Information technology adoption and continuance: A
longitudinal study of individuals’ behavioral intentions. Information & Management, 50(7),
pp.457-465.
Tafti, A., Mithas, S. and Krishnan, M.S., 2013. The effect of information technology–enabled
flexibility on formation and market value of alliances. Management Science, 59(1), pp.207-
225.
Tarafdar, M., Gupta, A. and Turel, O., 2013. The dark side of information technology
use. Information Systems Journal, 23(3), pp.269-275.
Ullah, A. and Lai, R., 2013. A systematic review of business and information technology
alignment. ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems (TMIS), 4(1), p.4.
Von Solms, R. and Van Niekerk, J., 2013. From information security to cyber
security. computers & security, 38, pp.97-102.
Document Page
15
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
Wagner, D., Vollmar, G. and Wagner, H.T., 2014. The impact of information technology on
knowledge creation: An affordance approach to social media. Journal of Enterprise
Information Management, 27(1), pp.31-44.
Zhilenkov, A. and Chernyi, S., 2015. Investigation performance of marine equipment with
specialized information technology. Procedia Engineering, 100, pp.1247-1252.
1 out of 16
[object Object]

Your All-in-One AI-Powered Toolkit for Academic Success.

Available 24*7 on WhatsApp / Email

[object Object]