IT Ethics: Article
Added on 2020-03-23
8 Pages1779 Words52 Views
Running head: IT ETHICSEvery Click you take, they’ll be watching you Name of the StudentName of the UniversityAuthor’s note
1 IT ETHICS“Every click you take, they'll be watching you”This article talks about an advanced technological tool that is inbuilt in iPhones so that itcan help out the law to find out any type of criminal activities (The Sydney Morning Herald,2017). The inbuilt technology of iPhones has the ability to retain the information even after it hasbeen removed by the user. According to the forensic research team, most of the iPhone usershave no idea about completely removing all the information. Jonathan Zdziarski is a well knownformer hacker. He had written a book named “iPhone Forensics”. The law agencies had askedhim to train and teach them about the information storage as well as the retrieval of informationfrom iPhone. This phone has an automatic capability of capturing images when the user switchesfrom one application to another. The Urbanspoon application helps to find out restaurants in thecity. The iPhone has the ability to store everything that is typed and stored for autocorrectpurpose. A person with great expertise knowledge will be able to find out what the user hasmessaged to several months ago even if the original message and email has been deleted. The in-built mapping or tracking application will keep track of every move of the iPhone users by takingscreenshots of the activity and storing in the device (The Sydney Morning Herald, 2017). Thephotos that are present in the phone are tagged that identify specific information regarding theplace and time. Other information stored in the system is the browser history and the otherdetails. This essay analyses the article in terms of the four main classical theories of ethics. Thetheories that are used in this essay in order to find out whether this act is ethical or not are theUtilitarianism theory, Virtue Ethics, Deontology theory as well as the Contract theory.
2 IT ETHICSThe Utilitarianism theory focuses on the utility of huge number of people. Utility hererefers to the pleasure of the people is not related to the usage (Arntzenius, 2014). This theory isbased on consequences of an act or policy. If any act or policy produces happiness amongmaximum number of people then it is said that the act that is performed or the policy that isimplemented is ethical in nature (Broad, 2014). In this article it is seen that iPhone has the abilityto store data even after the users delete it. It is used for detecting any crime and identifyingcriminal activities. The users who are not involved in any criminal activities can feel that they donot have enough privacy. Privacy is a human right. A hacker can track any targeted user at anytime. From the perspective of the users this act does not spread happiness and therefore it cannotbe considered to be ethical. From the perspective of the police this act is ethical because it helpsto keep the society happy by identifying criminals and reducing the rate of criminal activities.Utilitarianism theory will support the tracking ability of iPhone as it will reduce crime and keepthe society happy. Deontological ethics is based on obeying rules and carrying out duties in anethical manner (Lazar, 2017). It focuses on justice. This justification will pay attention to theentity that is being surveyed. The inbuilt technology of the iPhone is said to store details of theactivities of the users. In the given article it is said that the police can use this technology toarrest criminals ((Ross, 2013). Here the entity is the criminal and he or she deserves to bemonitored. Therefore this activity will protect the society and will punish the criminals.Deontological theory will accept the concept of tracking individual record for the purpose ofidentifying criminals and arresting them for the welfare of the society. Virtue ethics focuses onthe character and the moral values of an individual person (Athanassoulis, 2013). Every personhas a certain character based on development and training that has been provided to them in theirentire life. This inbuilt technology in iPhone will make the users conscious before committing
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