Information Technology Ethics Issue 2022

Running head: IT ETHICS
Information Technology Ethics
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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IT ETHICS
Question 1
Identification of the Main ethical Issue associated with Data Collection in the article with the
help of Philosophical Ethics Perspective
The Apple products like iPhone, iPod and iPad get the respective permission for
accessing personal information or data and it is absolutely legal for them to take up the personal
data as it is allowed to do so (5 Extremely Private Things. 2017). There are five private things
that are surrendered to Apple and to the third party developers, which include the details shared
with Siri, few fairly personal data, location of the devices, speed of the information and the
messages sent for a time. Although, it is legal according to the product’s documents; it is highly
unethical as per perspective of philosophical ethics (5 Extremely Private Things. 2017). Such
unethical approach for facilitation of delivery of messages to other customers could be quite
ineffective and would draw unethical significance majorly. Moreover, this particular approach
can also increase the chance of business failure at once.
The main reason for such unethical significance is that the customer’s data should be
stolen or drawn under any circumstance and the different values and concepts related to human
morality are being analyzed on top priority (Kagan, 2018). Ethics eventually seeks in resolving
the questions regarding human morality by properly defining the major ideas like good and evil,
right and wrong and even virtue and vice. The respective information of the customer could be
used for illegal or unethical approaches and hence philosophically, the case scenario is termed as
unethical in nature. There exist 6 principal ethics orientated philosophies present for better
analysis of a situation, which include category based imperative, utilitarianism, hedonism, the
golden mean, the golden rule and finally the ignorance veil (Peters, 2015).

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These above mentioned philosophical ethics provide knowledge about the wrong steps
that are being undertaken by the management of Apple, regarding the method of data collection
and ensure systematization on top priority and take up effective decisions eventually (Sidgwick,
2019). The consequences of such data collection procedure could be extremely vulnerable and
could even take up the data for wrong intentions. The customer might even face data hacking and
there would not be any chance for reflection of a certain standard for ethical data management
(Winch, 2020). Moreover, according to philosophical ethics, the confidential data could be stored
inside the phone and would not be deleted under any circumstance. These philosophical
approaches towards business ethics provide proper guidelines to make the most ethical business
decisions; however few of the approaches are controversial and also comprise of no support from
the moral scholars (Duska, Duska & Kury, 2018). The most ethical decisions hence would not be
taken in this case and the customers might not even utilize Apple products under any
circumstance.
The business people or customers of Apple would also consider their personal ethics,
legal provisions and organizational policies with the philosophical approaches towards ethics
while making decisions. The management of Apple Inc. should change their policies, so that it
becomes quite easier for them to understand the social responsibilities and ethical behaviors
easily and promptly (Keown, 2016). The software license agreement of Apple iOS states that the
software using in connection with the Apple ID, requires to have an applicable term of service.
As a result, the latest terms and conditions of iTunes’ are required in the device. Although, there
had been minimum of one instance of speed information that has made its way into the
respective hands of law enforcement (Fraser, 2018). The subsequent makers of different mobile
navigation tools, namely TomTom has apologized to their customers and it was being revealed

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that the organization had sold traffic data to the police within Netherlands (5 Extremely Private
Things. 2017). As a result, they have been confronting major ethical concerns associated to
leakage of customer data to the police; in spite of the fact that it was legal and they have helped
the police in setting speed traps.