IT Ethics and Professional Practice

This document discusses the ethical issues in IT and professional practice. It explores the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal and compares the Australian Computer Society Code of Ethics and ACM Code of Ethics. It also critiques the concepts of Act Deontology and Rule Deontology using suitable examples.

Running head: IT ethics and Professional Practice
IT ETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1IT Ethics
2018 Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal:
Facebook-Cambridge Analytical Data Scandal is one of the significant political issues
which has affected the privacy policy of any Individual. From the analysis it has been
observed that Cambridge Analytica used to harvest the private information of individuals
which are collected form Facebook. In the year 2015 Harry Davies has first reported about
the personal data harvesting. The fundamental purpose of this harvesting is that is it collects
Facebook data from the individuals account to analyse in order to analyse few factors without
the consent of those individuals (Granville 2018). Along with that it has been also noticed
that Facebook has helped the Cambridge Analytica to utilize the personal information of
more than 87 million user, with the objective to helped the elect president Mr. Donald Trump.
In the year 2014 the process was first initiated by utilizing the personal information of more
than 300000 Facebook user to determine where they use most of the likes, any why do they
prefer those aspects. The Kogan’s App was used to gather those information as it offers series
of surveys. Furthermore, from the further analysis of the report it has been noticed that the
primary target of Kogan’s App was to engage 50 million people however in the year 2018 it
has been noticed that more than 87 million peoples were into the trap. Along with that an
investigation has informed that while collecting the data from Facebook, Kogan’s
Application has taken permission from the Facebook Authorities. However, the Facebook
authorities has denied that fact by stating that Kogan has lied to us by the approach in which
it has taken permission for to analyse the user data for the purpose of research but Kogan has
violated the privacy concern of the company by providing those data to the Cambridge
Analytica. Followed by the concerned of the organizational privacy policy, Facebook
requested to Cambridge Analytica to remove those data, however it was not clear that
whether they have deleted those data or not (Confessore 2018).

2IT Ethics
From the analysis of the above scenario it has been noticed that there are several
issues present related to the professional ethics. According to the code of honesty in ACS
codes of conducts, since the Kogan’s application has lied to the Facebook authorities about
the purpose of collecting data, it was purely a mis conduction of Honesty in the workplace
(Buchanan et al., 2014). Along with that the analysis based on the professional ethics it has
been noticed that in the case scenario of the Cambridge-Analytica two significant ethical
issues are present. The first one based on the privacy concern, which has stated that it is
necessary to keep the customers as well as the data of the employs confidential. However, it
is visible that Facebook has violated the rule permitting Kogan’s to use the user data (Mason
2017).
Thus, it can be stated by the analysis of 2018 Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data
that it has not followed any basic professional ethics as well as it has not maintained honesty
to the stakeholders.
Australian Computer Society Code of Ethics and ACM Code of Ethics and
Professional Conduct:
In the field of Information system (SI) there are several significant codes of ethics. In
this part it will compare the Australian Computer Society Code of Ethics and ACM Code of
Ethics. The fundamental objective of to compare these codes is to determine the affects on
stakeholders due to the application of those codes. After the comparison of both the codes of
ethics it has been noticed that one of the primary objectives of these codes is to provided
facility to the individuals as well as the social environment (Gotterbarn 2013). According to
the ACS codes of conducts it has stated that an individual should do such activities by which
they can improve their quality of life. Similarly, the ACM code of ethics has stated that in the
field of computing the operations selected to do any job must be aware that it should provide

3IT Ethics
enhancement to the stakeholder’s life as well as it provides facility to the individual
stakeholder. Along with this it has also mentioned that the operations should not harm any
individual. Followed by the above aspects, honesty is also one of the major concerns of these
two codes of ethics, which has stated that into a professional field all the stakeholders must
be honest to the other stakeholder in order to avoid the harmful aspects from the
organizational structure. This ethical code has stated that being honest about the actions as
well as the purpose of those actions will surely reduce the harmful aspects from the
workplace. Along with the above aspects one of the major aspects is the privacy concern of
the information resources. In the both ethical codes they have mentioned that along with
being honest about the actions the personal information of individuals must not be affected
(Tractenberg et al., 2015). Thus, it can be stated that the personal information of the
stakeholders should not be used without the consent of that stakeholder. Followed by the
above aspects the codes of ACM and ACS has also have several similarities which includes
the values of competence, professional development, leadership principle as well as the
professionalism. In both the ethical codes they have stated that the being in the field of
information system a person should work according to the stakeholder’s requirements as well
as the individual should develop their technical skills in order to improve the effectiveness of
their actions (Gotterbarn 2013). Along with the development of the technical skills individual
should opt to enhance the leadership quality as well, as this skill will help the individual to
work combinedly in a group or team. Apart from the above aspects it is also essential to
maintain the professionalism between the stakeholders and the workplace, as being
professional will help to improve the work quality of the individual as well as it will help
individuals to maintain healthy relationship with the stakeholders (McDermid 2015).
Thus, from comparing both the codes of professional ethics it can be concluded that
the ACS codes of ethics as well as the ACM codes of ethics has considered all most similar

4IT Ethics
aspects in order to provide effective solutions to the individuals to maintain healthy
workplace as well as it helps to enhance the quality of their work.
Critique of the concepts of Act Deontology and Rule Deontology using
suitable examples:
As per my opinion, in the philosophy which is moral, deontological ethics or rather
deontology is a theory of ethics which is normative in which an action’s morality is based
upon whether the action is either right or wrong under a set of rules rather than being based
upon the action’s consequences. An example of deontology can be described as a belief that
murdering someone is really very wrong, even if it is a case of self-defense (Jackson &
Smith, 2016). The ethical theory of deontology is a non-consequentialist theory of ethics
which is based upon duty. A theory based upon duty is mainly a particular theory through
which the central concept which is moral is that of the duty. A theory which is based upon
duty can be contrasted with a particular theory which will be either based upon sentiment or
character. A virtual theory can be taken as an example in such a case (Misselbrook, 2013). A
virtual theory is a theory is a theory in which the central concept of morality lies upon such a
character which will be good or rather a disposition which will be very good morally. This
helps in analyzing what is wrong and what is right in the choice of the individual in terms of
both the character as well as the disposition indirectly of the individual who is making the
choices.
The concept of Act Deontology or an ethical theory which is Act Deontological or is
mainly a theory of deontology which is capable of recording the priority which is logical to
particular judgments which are moral rather than to either principles or rules. This Act
deontology can be summarized like “Do the correct thing!”

5IT Ethics
On the other hand, Rule Deontology or an ethical theory which is Rule Deontological
(for example, W.D. Ross) is a theory of deontology which is capable of according priority of
rules like “Do not lie” which is mostly logical rather than to all the judgments which are
particular or to several principles. Ross mainly accords priority which is logical to all the
rules which states duties which are both prima facie and conditional. He is not capable of
assuming that there are a number of general principles which are present for revolving several
conflicts among all the duties which are mainly prima facie.
The specific word deontology is derived from the Greek words for both duty as well
as study of logos (Mukerji, 2014). Deontology is considered as one of those kind of theories
which are normative related to which several choices are needed morally, permitted or rather
forbidden (May, 2014). Therefore, it can be said that deontology mainly falls with the moral
theory’s domain which is capable of both guiding as well as assessing what type of individual
or person we are and must be.
Therefore, deontology mainly states that any particular action which will be either
good or bad morally like killing a murderer (where killing someone is considered as wrong)
for protecting our family (providing protection to them is the right thing). As for my example
which means protecting my family is the rational thing to do even if it is not considered to be
the best moral thing to have been done.

6IT Ethics
Reference:
Buchanan, E. A., & Henderson, K. A. (2014). Case studies in library and information
science ethics. McFarland.
Confessore, N. (2018). Cambridge Analytica and Facebook: The scandal and the fallout so
far. The New York Times, 4, 2018.
Gotterbarn, D. (2013). 13. ICT governance and what to do about the toothless tiger (s):
Professional organisations and codes of ethics1. Professionalism in the Information
and Communication Technology Industry, 3, 267.
Gotterbarn, D. (2013). 13. ICT governance and what to do about the toothless tiger (s):
Professional organisations and codes of ethics1. Professionalism in the Information
and Communication Technology Industry, 3, 267.
Granville, K. (2018). Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: What you need to know as fallout
widens. The New York Times, 19.
Jackson, F., & Smith, M. (2016). The implementation problem for deontology. Weighing
reasons, 279-291.
Mason, R. O. (2017). Four ethical issues of the information age. In Computer Ethics (pp. 41-
48). Routledge.
May, J. (2014). Moral judgment and deontology: Empirical developments. Philosophy
Compass, 9(11), 745-755.
McDermid, D. (2015). Ethics in ICT: an Australian perspective. Pearson Higher Education
AU.

7IT Ethics
Misselbrook, D. (2013). Duty, Kant, and deontology. Br J Gen Pract, 63(609), 211-211.
Mukerji, N. (2014). Consequentialism, deontology and the morality of promising.
In Business ethics and risk management (pp. 111-126). Springer, Dordrecht.
Tractenberg, R. E., Russell, A. J., Morgan, G. J., FitzGerald, K. T., Collmann, J., Vinsel,
L., ... & Dolling, L. M. (2015). Using ethical reasoning to amplify the reach and
resonance of professional codes of conduct in training big data scientists. Science and
engineering ethics, 21(6), 1485-1507.