ICT Professional Practice and Ethics: Cambridge Analytica Case Study

This report analyzes the case study of Cambridge Analytica and its unethical data extraction from Facebook. It discusses the ethical implications using the Doing Ethics Technique and ACS code of ethics.

Running head: ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
ICT Professional Practice and Ethics: Cambridge Analytica Case Study
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

1
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
Executive Summary
The main aim of the report is to understand the case scenario of Cambridge-Analytica
Facebook case study. A whistle blower, namely Christopher Wylie has blown whistle against
unethical data extraction from survey form in Facebook by Cambridge Analytica. The entire
case scenario of Cambridge Analytica Facebook is properly analysed in the report on the
basis of Doing Ethics Technique and whether the case study is ethical or not. Moreover, ACS
code of ethics is also being use for ethical analyses of case study. This report has provided
proper description about ethical analysis in respect to ACS code and DET.

2
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
Table of Contents
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................3
2. Discussion..............................................................................................................................3
2.1 Brief Background of the Case Study................................................................................3
2.2 Analysis of the Situation using the Doing Ethics Technique...........................................4
2.3 Analysis of the Situation from the point of view of an ICT Professional with ACS
Codes of Ethics......................................................................................................................9
3. Conclusion and Recommendation........................................................................................11
References................................................................................................................................12

3
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
1. Introduction
ICT or information and communications technology can be referred to as the part of
IT, which focuses out over the role of the unified communication as well as integration of
computer systems and telecommunications with the required enterprise software, storages,
audio visual system, middleware, which could easily allow the users for accessing,
transmitting, storing and manipulation of information (Vaishnavi and Kuechler 2015). Such
distinctive technologies eventually provide access to information through the help of
telecommunications. It emphasizes on communication technologies and involves internet,
cell phones, communication mediums and wireless networks. ICT can either be ethical or
unethical for understanding any type of case study related to a company (Bilbao-Osorio,
Dutta and Lanvin 2013). This following report provides a discussion on ICT professional
practice and ethics in respect to the case study of Cambridge Analytica. A whistle blower
blew up the whistle against voting intentions of several citizens and users of Facebook and
hence this case study came into account. The entire case study will be eventually analysed
with the help of Doing Ethics Technique and with ACS code of ethics.
2. Discussion
2.1 Brief Background of the Case Study
Cambridge Analytica had provided distinctive information to the presidential
campaign of Donald Trump in the year of 2016, which eventually allowed the targeted
political posts of Facebook to influence on voting operations of several individuals
(Cambridge Analytica Scandal. 2019). This particular organization of Cambridge Analytica
gathered personal information of the users with the help of a quiz that needed a Facebook
login for effective completion and it was noted that 270000 people took the quiz and hence
their data were being undertaken by this company. Being the major part of Facebook log in,

4
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
all the individuals provided significant permission to Cambridge Analytica to collect their
personal information as well as the friends of the victims. It referred to the fact that they got
subsequent access to 8700000 users’ data or almost a quarter of users in Facebook within
USA. A whistle blower, namely Christopher Wylie eventually revealed each and every
alleged practice to newspapers and according to him, the data of the users were being utilized
for developing psychographic individual profiles and hence delivering pro Trump materials
to these users online (Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower. 2019). Facebook however denied
the allegation and mentioned that the data were protected efficiently. As a result of this
particular allegation, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, Mr Alexander Nix was being
suspended.
2.2 Analysis of the Situation using the Doing Ethics Technique
The above mentioned case study can be understood with the help of Doing Ethics
Technique or DET method and the description is given in the following paragraphs.
2.2.1 What is going on?
Cambridge Analytica is a data science company that helps in incrementing the data
value and quality to a better level (Frank 2013). In the year of 2016 US elections, this
particular organization took up a survey with the users of Facebook for knowing about results
of their upcoming elections. They were in the midst of a media fire storm after an undercover
sting operation, few senior executives as well as the CEO, Mr Alexander Nix were being
caught for boasting about psychological manipulation, fake news campaign and even
entrapment techniques (Noddings 2013). These senior management of Cambridge Analytica
including the CEO were caught on camera suggesting that the organization can utilize
misinformation, bribes and even sex workers for trying and helping out the political
candidates to win votes in the entire world. A whistle blower, namely Christopher Wylie

5
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
highlighted the entire issue. He works for this particular organization and hence when he got
the news, he decided to blew up the issue and hence it came into account. More than 50
million users’ data were leaked by Cambridge Analytica and it allowed this firm in building a
specific software solution for helping to influence options and alternatives in elections (Peters
2015). They arranged for a survey in terms of a quiz and ensured that maximum users of
Facebook in the United States of America are attending the quiz. As a result, the CEO as well
as few senior executives were suspended for this act.
2.2.2 What are the facts?
The most significant facts within this specific case scenario are provided below:
i) Cambridge Analytica extracted personal data of more than 8,700,000 users of
Facebook in the United States of America for knowing about the presidential campaign of
President Donald Trump.
ii) The second fact is that this type of campaign mainly allows targeted Facebook
political posts for the purpose of influencing voting intentions of the citizens of the United
States of America (Critchley 2014).
iii) Cambridge Analytica arranged for a specific quiz with the core purpose of
gathering personal information.
iv) The quiz that was being arranged by Cambridge Analytica was required to be
completed with a Facebook log in and as an estimation about 270,000 people took up the
quiz.
v) A whistle blower Christopher Wylie revealed the entire scenario to two popular
newspapers of the USA, in spite of being a part of Cambridge Analytica, since according to

6
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
him, it was unethical to draw a user’s personal data without informing him or her and
manipulating the voting elections of an entire country (Cambridge Analytica Scandal. 2019).
vi) The significant data that was being sold to this organization was being utilized for
effectively developing certain distinctive psychographic individual profiles and hence
delivering subsequent pro Trump materials to them through online.
vii) Another subsequent fact is that Facebook completely denied the allegation of data
theft and mentioned that Cambridge Analytica has obtained the data legitimately.
viii) After news came out of Christopher Wylie, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, Mr
Alexander Nix was suspended eventually (Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower. 2019).
2.2.3 What are the Issues?
There are some of the major and the most significant issues that are being observed in
the case scenario of the organization, Cambridge Analytica and such issues are provided
below:
i) The first and the foremost issue that is extremely common for this specific case
scenario is that Cambridge Analytica extracted personal data and details of the users for
completing the voting system of the USA in the year of 2016 (Fromm 2013).
ii) The second issue in this particular case scenario of Cambridge Analytica scandal is
that they utilized the platform of Facebook for conducting a quiz or survey on voting
elections and hence obtaining a tentative result in the first go.
iii) Facebook was alleged to be helping Cambridge Analytica for completing their
survey and also allowing them to use their platform for stealing the confidential data of their
users as well as friends of those users (Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower. 2019).

7
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
iv) Christopher Wylie, a whistle blower highlighted the case and the entire issue came
into account shortly. Moreover, he even mentioned this case scenario to two popular
newspapers and thus the issue was highlighted.
v) Cambridge Analytica denied that the data was not being utilized in connection to
the campaign of Trump and hence the allegation was false (Gatens 2013).
vi) The next issue is that Facebook too denied the allegation and stated that
Cambridge Analytica has taken the data legitimately and has not violated any of the ethical
issues.
vii) It was also supposedly used to direct the message for the political campaign that
was being supported by the organization and majorly for the election victory of Donald
Trump.
viii) The US Cambridge Analytica senators have eventually insisted the Facebook
CEO, Mark Zuckerberg for testifying in front of the Congress about the process of this social
media giant, Facebook protecting the users’ data to a high level (Kagan 2018). Moreover, he
was also summoned by the chairman of a parliamentary committee for providing an
explanation of the catastrophic failure. The CEO of Cambridge Analytica, Mr Alexander Nix
was suspended for the act.
2.2.4 Who is affected?
The most affected people in this specific case scenario of Cambridge Analytica
scandal were the citizens of the United States of America as they did not get scope for justice
and their personal data were being extracted illegally without even informing them for
political advantages of few political candidates and an organization (Ross 2013). The next
affected people within the case study were the other stakeholders and customers of

8
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
Cambridge Analytica, who were completely innocent and did not have any idea regarding the
scam.
2.2.5 What are the ethical issues as well as implications?
The major ethical issues that can be recognized from this case scenario of the scandal
in Cambridge Analytica are provided below:
i) The first important ethical issue within this specific case scenario is that personal
information of more than 870000 users of Facebook were used by Cambridge Analytica to
help out political candidates to gain votes (Bloom et al. 2014). This is completely unethical
as personal data should not be extracted without informing the respective individual under
any circumstance.
ii) The second important ethical issue within this case scenario is that Facebook was
involved in the case (Burbules 2018). More than 56% of the entire population of the United
States of America uses Facebook as they have trusted the application, however with this type
of activity, they eventually lost many of their users since they would have trust issues with
Facebook.
iii) A political leader should be fairly selected by voting of the citizens of that
particular country and vandalizing the ethical method of voting elections is termed as an
extremely unethical act, which was being done by Cambridge Analytica in this particular case
study.
2.2.6 What can be done about it?
For the three above provided ethical issues, proper steps should have been taken. The
whistle blower, Christopher Wylie’s facts should have been taken into note for ensuring that

9
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
no such activity is repeated under any circumstance (Erol-Kantarci and Mouftah 2014).
Moreover, strict legal options should be undertaken against them.
2.2.7 What are the options?
The options within this case study are given below:
i) The entire issue should be highlighted and should be shown by the media across the
world so that no such unethical activity is repeated.
ii) The second option is to penalize Alexander Nix and Mark Zuckerberg for their
unethical act of data extraction (Von Solms and Van Niekerk 2013). Moreover, strict actions
are also required to be undertaken.
iii) The final option is to shut down Facebook and Cambridge Analytica for involving
into such illegal activities.
2.2.8 Which option is the best and why?
The best option amongst the three above mentioned options is the second option.
They should be penalized and strict legal actions should be taken against them as they were
unethical (Garvey 2014). Furthermore, they did not follow basic work ethics and did not
consider their customers on top priority, thus option is perfect for them.
2.3 Analysis of the Situation from the point of view of an ICT Professional with ACS
Codes of Ethics
The case scenario of the organization, Cambridge Analytica can be analysed with the
help of ACS codes of ethics and these six codes of ethics are provided below:
a) The Primacy of the Public Interest: As per this ACS code of ethics, the respective
member should place each and every interest of public above interest of businesses, personal
and sectional (ACS Code of Ethics. 2019). It refers to the fact that customers’ priority should

10
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
be kept on top under every circumstance. In the case study of scandal for Cambridge
Analytica, this organization only thought about their own benefit and hence it can be termed
as non ethical in nature.
b) The Enhancement of Quality of Life: According to this ACS code of ethics, an
organization or organizational member is strongly responsible for enhancing the overall
quality of life to a high level and should even ensure that each and every activity of the
organization is enhancing quality of work of all those, who are associated or affected with the
work (ACS Code of Ethics. 2019). In this particular case study of Cambridge Analytica, the
respective organization not only degraded their quality of work, but also negatively affected
the privacy and security of personal data of users, thus this case study can be termed as
extremely non ethical.
c) Honesty: Third distinctive ACS code of ethics is honesty. An organization or
organizational member should be honest enough while representing the skills, products,
services and knowledge and hence dishonesty is not at all allowed here (Krikidis et al. 2014).
However, in the case study provided, the entire organization, organizational senior executives
and even the CEO, Alexander Nix was dishonest and did not accept their faults; hence the
case study is unethical in nature.
d) Competence: The fourth important and significant ACS code of ethics is
competence. It states that the respective organization or organizational member should be
competent and should work competently as well as diligently for the stakeholders. This code
of ethics ensures that competence is highly maintained, however in this case study,
competence was absent and thus the case study is unethical in nature.
e) Professional Development: According to this ACS code of ethics, an organization
or organizational member should increase their own professional developments as well as

11
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
ensure that the staff are developing professionalism (Katz 2017). In this case study, apart
from the CEO, he even involved his other employees to extract data from Facebook platform
and thus it is unethical.
f) Professionalism: This final ACS codes of ethics would be professionalism that
states that any organizational member or organization should increase the subsequent
confidentiality of ACS and hence maintain respect of the other members for one another. In
this case scenario provided, both the CEO of this organization, Alexander Nix and Facebook
CEO, Mark Zuckerberg did not follow professionalism under any circumstance and they
were unprofessional and the case study is unethical (ACS Code of Ethics. 2019).
3. Conclusion and Recommendation
Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that ICT is the combination
of components and infrastructure, which eventually enable modernized computing. This type
of technology majorly encompasses both the internet enabled sphere and mobile enabled
sphere with wireless networks. Ethics is the major involvement of systemization, defending
or even recommendation of concepts of incorrect and correct conducts. It majorly concerns
with the matters of value and hence consists of answers of some of the most important and
significant questions regarding human morality. ACS code of ethics provides six distinctive
codes that help in understanding whether the case study or situation is ethical or not.
Moreover, Doing Ethics Technique or DET is also termed as an effective and efficient
technique to know about ethical aspect of the case study. The above provided case study has
clearly described a brief description on the entire case study of Facebook Cambridge
Analytica with relevant details.

12
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
After bringing together the two analyses of DET and ACS, it is recommended to take
strict legal actions against Mark Zuckerberg and Alexander Nix as both of them were
unethical and illegal in terms of the case study.

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 15 May 2019].
Bilbao-Osorio, B., Dutta, S. and Lanvin, B., 2013, April. The global information technology
report 2013. In World Economic Forum (pp. 1-383).
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.
Burbules, N., 2018. Watch IT: The risks and promises of information technologies for
education. Routledge.
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 15 May 2019].
Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower. 2019. [online]. Accessed from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXdYSQ6nu-M [Accessed on 15 May 2019].
Critchley, S., 2014. Ethics of deconstruction. Edinburgh University Press.
Erol-Kantarci, M. and Mouftah, H.T., 2014. Energy-efficient information and communication
infrastructures in the smart grid: A survey on interactions and open issues. IEEE
Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 17(1), pp.179-197.
Frank, A.W., 2013. The wounded storyteller: Body, illness, and ethics. University of Chicago
Press.

14
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS
Fromm, E., 2013. Man for himself: An inquiry into the psychology of ethics. Routledge.
Garvey, W.D., 2014. Communication: the essence of science: facilitating information
exchange among librarians, scientists, engineers and students. Elsevier.
Gatens, M., 2013. Imaginary bodies: Ethics, power and corporeality. Routledge.
Kagan, S., 2018. Normative ethics. Routledge.
Katz, J.E., 2017. Machines that become us: The social context of personal communication
technology. Routledge.
Krikidis, I., Timotheou, S., Nikolaou, S., Zheng, G., Ng, D.W.K. and Schober, R., 2014.
Simultaneous wireless information and power transfer in modern communication
systems. IEEE Communications Magazine, 52(11), pp.104-110.
Noddings, N., 2013. Caring: A relational approach to ethics and moral education. Univ of
California Press.
Peters, R.S., 2015. Ethics and Education (Routledge Revivals). Routledge.
Ross, D., 2013. Foundations of ethics. Read Books Ltd.
Vaishnavi, V.K. and Kuechler, W., 2015. Design science research methods and patterns:
innovating information and communication technology. Crc Press.
Von Solms, R. and Van Niekerk, J., 2013. From information security to cyber
security. computers & security, 38, pp.97-102.