ICT Professional Practices and Ethics

ICT Professional Practices and Ethics
(Task 2)
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Contents
Background to the case study.....................................................................................................3
Analysis of the situation using the “Doing Ethics Technique”..................................................4
Q1. What’s going on?............................................................................................................4
Q2. What are the facts?..........................................................................................................4
Q3. What are the issues?........................................................................................................5
Q4. Who is affected?..............................................................................................................5
Q5. What are the ethical issues and implications...................................................................5
Q6. What can be done about it?.............................................................................................5
Q7. What are the options?......................................................................................................5
Q8. Which option is best and why?.......................................................................................6
Analysis of the situation from the point of view of an ICT Professional using the ACS Code
of Ethics.....................................................................................................................................6
Conclusions to bring together the two analyses and presents overall recommendations...........8
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Background to the case study
Professional practices and ethics are required to follow by professionals so that they can
facilitate effective operations. In Information and Technology process, professionals are
required to focus on ethics first so that they can control unethical practices against the people
and clients. This report is focused on professional practices and ethics in ICT with the context
of the case of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. It will be uncovered the facts with the
assistance of Doing Ethics Technique and assess the situation with consideration of the ACS
code of ethics.
The provided case is reflected on the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook which uses
personal data and information of clients to manipulate their voting intention in the
presidential election of USA (Meredith, 2019). They have provided such information to the
presidential campaign of Trump which would allow the Facebook political post to get
influence easily. They use software with the name of “thisisyourdigitallife” to assess personal
data and information of users by organizing a quiz. In this aspect, more than 2, 00,000 people
take participation where Facebook users provide permission to assess their personal
information by Cambridge Analytica. This aspect has been signified that the company
already assess the information of 8,700,000 users in the USA. Moreover, the allegation has
put moreover by stating that such personal information not only influences users of the USA
but also the voting aspect of Brexit. Britain Channel 4 has organized an undercover operation
against such companies to reveal the truth and signify a recording of company senior
executive and CEO Alexander Nix. They were suggesting each other that they could use sex-
workers, bribes, and misinformation to manipulate the results of an election (Cambridge
Analytica explained: The facts, implications, and open questions, 2018).
As per some reports, Global Science Research has utilized the paid information of users to
organize psychological tests where app collected their information as well as friend's
information. According to the whistleblower, Kogan Company shared such data with
Cambridge Analytica so that they can develop software to influence elections (Chang, 2019).
Moreover, Facebook has stated that Kogan lied on social media as well as violate the policies
of personal information while transferring the data. Facebook also banned the Kogan app in
2015 and ordered to all parties that they have to destroy information on a prior basis. Many
reports have suggested that such data does not destroy yet.
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Not only this, but Channel 4 team also covered some more facts about this aspect where
Cambridge Analytica’s Nix stated that they met with Trump who stated that company was
responsible for the win in the election of 2016. This was the case which profounds where all
companies start blaming others and indicate that they lead the further investigation to resolve
such aspect and determine the actual fact. Alexander Nix CEO of Cambridge Analytica got
suspension after Channel 4 undercover investigation. Head of European Parliament also said
that they will organize some investigation to assess about the misuse of data. The
parliamentary commission also summoned the Facebook CEO to take proper explanation
regarding catastrophic failure in front of lawmakers.
Analysis of the situation using the “Doing Ethics Technique”
Doing Ethics Technique is helpful to assess the ethical issues present in any scenario (Al-
Saggaf, et. al., 2017). This technique is helpful to assess the situation ethically rather focus on
the best solution to the problem (Zunger, 2018). Thus, this technique is required to apply
properly to assess ethical frame properly so that issues lead to minimizing and ethical frame
get assess clearly. On the basis of the proposed case of Cambridge Analytica, management
needs to organize this aspect to analyze that their practice was ethical or not.
Q1. What’s going on?
The proposed case is focused on data misuse of users from Facebook in the USA during the
elections of 2016. Facebook has put their aspect that they banned the application of Kogan
which utilizes their user's information after permission. Kogan has claimed that they
destroyed the information (Zunger, 2018). Cambridge Analytica has claimed that they do not
use such information on the other hand CEO of a company stated that during a meeting with
Trump he clarifies that the company is largely responsible for success. Thus, all of them
blamed each other whereas whistleblower has stated that the company really useful
information and influence voting results and Brexit.
Q2. What are the facts?
The major facts which support this frame were statement provided by the CEO of Cambridge
Analytica where they proclaim that they utilize sex workers, analyst and other aspects to
manipulate the data and information (Common, 2018). Along with this, a quiz was organized
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