ITC 506 Argument Visualisation: Ethical Theories in Data Harvesting

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ITC 506 Argument Visualisation
(Assessment 3)
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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Ethical Theories and Their application in Ethical Issues:...............................................................5
Deontology ethical theory............................................................................................................5
Utilitarianism ethical theory........................................................................................................6
Contract ethical theory.................................................................................................................7
Virtue ethical theory....................................................................................................................8
Screenshot of mind map................................................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................12
Appendices....................................................................................................................................13
Link of the mind map................................................................................................................13
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Introduction
In this report, the analysis of ethical issues in the above-mentioned case study will be done. The
case study is related to a company which harvested the data from the people of the United States.
Ethical theories will be discussed which include various ethical issues. Appropriate solutions and
steps will be discussed to minimize such ethical issues in the country. The actions taken by the
company will be examined whether they were correct or not according to the ethical theories. An
argument visualization will be presented which standardize major issue and potential problem
related to ethics. In the report, the ethical theories will be defined and how the theories can guide
the business organisations to take corrective action will be defined as well.
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Data Collection: “Harvesting” Personalities Online (an ethics case
study)
https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/internet-ethics/resources/data-collection-harvesting-
personalities-online/
An American politician hired the services of a private company. The politician hired the services
of the company for the collection of data about the personalities of the registered voters. For the
collection of the data, the company used the advertisement method wherein the people were
asked to fill a questionnaire about the personalities. The questionnaire contained 5 categories
such as agreeable, openness, extroversion, conscientious and neurotic. For the advertisement
company used three advertisement campaign these were a soldier, a family man, and an
architect. These were requesting the people to fill their personality type. People who were
honest, fair and reliable categorised as agreeable. Openness denoted the people who were curious
about everything. Extroversion was for the people who were so energetic and enjoyed the
company of other people. People who were confident, and motivated classified as conscientious.
Neurotic represented the people who often experience negative feelings and treat the normal
situation as threatening. Through the classification, the company successfully collected the data
about the personalities of the people.
The company hired by the politician assessed the personalities of the people for the benefit of the
politicians. The data was collected with the help of numerous websites. The company did not
acknowledge the objective behind the data collection to the people. The people filled the
questionnaire as a part of the fun quiz. The company should have disclosed the purpose behind
the data harvesting. The company acknowledged that they assessed almost 190 million registered
voters of the United States.
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Ethical Theories and Their application in Ethical Issues:
Ethics are the moral principles and code of conducts which describes or define the behaviour of
people and group of people. Ethics guides the people and the organisations to do the right things
and take the right actions. Ethical theories are set of approaches or tools which do assist people
in taking corrective action in a dilemma.
Ethics of a company revolved around three major branches signify as follow:
 Deontological Ethics
 Teleological Ethics
 Virtue Ethics
These three ethics are required to evaluate while working on ethical theories. These three are
major branches of the study on which companies need to maintain their focus. These three
branches decide right and wrong actions and decision made therein. Thus, it is essential to
understand and evaluate each one of them so that ethically questionable aspects answer and
maintain easily. Below is a discussion of the ethical theories which present effective outcome
and management of IT related issues. Following are some classic ethical theories which utilize to
manage ethics and morals:
Deontology ethical theory
This theory is focusing on the relationship between duty and morality of human actions. It
derives from the Greek terminology which describes duty and science together. In these actions
are considered good and appropriate due to related moral values as it includes some actions of
characters and not consider the final action of the product (Deontological ethics, 2019). Morality
is getting influence due to the rationale of thoughts rather than the emotions of a person. Thus, it
is really essential to work on deontology ethical theory as it describes the duty and moral values
of a person. If a person has done something wrong to protect a frame, then it considers right.
This theory is not applied to the workplace and business ventures. Like if they provide some
facilities but done something wrong to protect ethical issues in social media, then it would create
a difference. They need to understand the moral values first, and duty and then proceed action
with the clear justification of use. This is helpful to determine the rightness and wrongness of an
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action by oneself rather than focus on others. Hence, this theory is required to apply properly by
an individual to maintain an ethical background.
This ethical theory describes that each and everyone should follow their obligation. It indicates
the positive characteristics of the people and group of people. This theory based on two
approaches first one is absolute and the second one is a duty to perform.
In the case study the data collected by hiding the objective from the people. It is the duty of the
company to disclose the aim and objective. The company was unable to perform its duties; hence
according to this theory the harvesting of data was ethically incorrect. In accordance with this
theory, the actions of the company were immoral.
Utilitarianism ethical theory
This theory is associated with an ethical frame which includes right and wrong decision solely on
the basis of consequences outcome by choosing right and wrong over the other policies. It
completely focuses on the outcome of the action and decision taken by a person. It is really
essential for a person to conceive the right and wrong decision so that they can ascertain the
effective outcome. Utilitarianism ethical theory is helpful to focus on results of the decision
which includes a clear evaluation of every single aspect (Herschel and Miori, 2017). Thus, it is
essential for a person to evaluate the outcome first and anticipate alternatives. Hence, this theory
can be applied in the business sector as well where managers need to evaluate end results first.
This will be helped them in maintain efficacy in operations. Hence, companies need to identify
the challenges in IT so that they can anticipate some outcome from it by using appropriate and
suitable actions. This, ethical theory can be useful to mitigate the challenges in information and
technology field. Software development companies are required to analyze the ethical theory so
that they can utilize it for further protection of clients from various issues. This ethical theory is
concerned with final results in order to derive a beneficial outcome.
There are two methods of Utilitarianism ethical theory
1. Act Utilitarianism: This theory says that a person should take care of the emotions of
every person and should try to do things in the benefit of the vast of the people.
According to this theory, people should help out each other.
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2. Rule Utilitarianism: This theory is related to laws and regulations. This ethical theory
says that a person should do things according to the law. No one should break the rules.
In the case study, the harvesting of the data was ethical as the data collected was not harmful to
anyone. That was only for the benefit of some people without harming anyone. According to this
ethical theory people should do things for the greater good of the people without harming them.
The company collected the data about the registered voters through an advertisement. The
method for the collection of data was not correct; however the information was not gathered to
harm anyone; hence in accordance with this theory the actions taken by the company were
ethically correct.
The company did not tell the people the purpose of the data collection. If the company disclosed
their objective behind the data collection, the responses from the registered voters might have
changed. Unknowingly the voters filled correct answers about their personalities, and that
resulted in significant gain to the company. According to the Utilitarianism theory, the
harvesting of data was ethically correct.
Contract ethical theory
According to this theory, people and entities live together and interact with each other for the
exchange of goods and services. A business organisation operates within the society, and it is the
responsibility of the organisation to properly discharge the duties and use socio friendly
techniques (Lapsley, 2016). The society allows the companies to establish their business within
the boundaries of the society; hence in return it the duty of the company to provide good quality
of services to the society. Now people have understood that there is no gain to harm each other
and if we live together that will be good for everyone. This theory says that people should help
out each other and should cooperate with each other. This theory defines that we all live together
and we all should help out each other.
According to this theory, the company did not use ethically incorrect practice. In the privacy
policy company did mention the sort of use of the data; hence the company did not break this
theory. The agreement was to give a questionnaire to the people for the assessment of the
personalities of the people. The company used the advertisement for the collection of the data
and with the help of web companies the company send the questionnaire in the form of
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advertisement and the people were required to fill that questionnaire. People were not aware of
the intention of the company, and they were filing the questionnaire as a part of some fun quiz.
For the data collection, the company used the help of other companies too. The data benefitted
the politicians to identify the personalities of diversified voters. The company assessed or
examined the personalities of various people if the company did not disclose the purpose just to
get the correct and right data from the registered voters.
The company did not use the data to deceive anyone or to harm anyone; hence according to this
theory the harvesting of the data was ethically correct. It was the duty of the company to disclose
the intention behind the data collection; however the company did not acknowledge the purpose
behind the collection of data. The extrapolation of the data was also ethically correct.
Virtue ethical theory
It includes and defines the ethics of a person judge by character and action which identity in its
normal behaviour background. Thus, a person leads to judging via virtual behaviour like work on
system, behaviour work ethics during the work process, etc. The virtue behaviour of a person
carrying out an action rather believes in ethical duties and rules (Lapsley, 2016). It includes the
key element of ethical thinking rather focus on rules. It mainly regulates with the honesty and
morality of a person which include some good practical habits like honesty, generosity which
enable and facilitate to make a person morally and virtuous ethical. Hence, in the IT context, a
person needs to follow the virtue ethical theory. If a company lead to misleading the data and
information of users, then it considers against virtue ethical theory. One of a great example is
Facebook which misleads their client data to other companies. This creates a negative image of
Facebook on users which further decline in share prices as well. Moreover, it promotes cyber-
attacks which need appropriate actions to minimize it. Thus, for companies, it is really essential
to understand the moral values associated with the virtual aspect so that they can control mislead
and data theft of users.
This theory judges a person by its character instead if judging a person from an action. This
theory focuses on characteristics such as honesty, integrity, morality; this theory guides the
people to do the correct things at the correct time. This theory assists people in making the right
choice.
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According to his theory, the company failed to keep its promises, and hence the means used by
the company were not correct for the data collection. The people thought that they are part of a
quiz. The company just to deliver services to a politician used the wrong technique for the
purpose of data collection. This theory is based on principles such as fairness, honesty and so on.
The company by hiding the fact failed to keep or fulfil its promises. In accordance with the
theory, the company used the incorrect means of the data collection, and that was ethically not
correct. The ethics are the set of norms which describes the behaviour of people. There various
ethical theories available to guide the companies.
On the basis of assessed classic ethical theories, it has been analyzed that companies need to
understand all theories properly. It is required to protect cyber-crime and attacks and protect the
intellectual property of a person. This provides a different number of theories so that each can
help in the assessment of right and wrong actions. One of the most appropriate theory in IT
context includes the virtue theory of ethics. Along with this, companies can use the right ethical
theory as well so that they can protect the information of users and protect their confidential
information and data to get mislead.
All these are some common ethical issues encounter in the present world. Australian software
development companies are required to work on it so that they can minimize these issues and
proclaim efficient gain. This will be resulted in them to control major ethical issues and maintain
balance. Ethical issues are required to reduce in context of cyber-crime and attacks so that
business ventures can provide a healthy standard to customers.
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Screenshot of mind map
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Conclusion
From the case study, it has been concluded that there are various ethical theories available for the
companies which they are required to comply with. Ethical theories are the collection of moral
behaviours which directs people or group of people. The ethical theories Contract, Virtue,
Deontology, and Utilitarianism judge the actions of the company whether the actions taken by
the company are correct or not. In this report, various ethical theories have been described. It has
been investigated that in the view of some ethical theories actions were taken by the company
were right; however in the view of some theories actions were taken by the company were
ethically not correct. In the report, the actions of the company have been examined in accordance
with the ethical theories.
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References
 Deontological ethics. (2019). Britannica. [Online]. Retrieved from:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/deontological-ethics.
 Dinham, P. (2019). Australian businesses plan increased spend on defence as cyber-
attacks escalate. [Online] IT Wire. Retrieved from:
https://www.itwire.com/security/86577-australian-businesses-plan-increase-spend-on-
defence-as-cyber-attacks-escalate.html.
 Herschel, R., & Miori, V. M. (2017). Ethics & big data. Technology in Society, 49, 31-36.
 JupiterNetworks. (2013). Cyber-attacks and intellectual property. [Online]. Retrieved
from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Aymi9WaqBI.
 Lapsley, D. (2016). Moral self-identity and the social-cognitive theory of
virtue. Developing the virtues: Integrating perspectives, 34-68.
 Lucas, K., Van Wee, B. and Maat, K., 2016. A method to evaluate equitable accessibility:
combining ethical theories and accessibility-based approaches. Transportation, 43(3),
pp.473-490.
 Mason, R. O. (2017). Four ethical issues of the information age. In Computer Ethics (pp.
41-48). Routledge.
 Sorokin, P. (2017). Social and cultural dynamics: A study of change in major systems of
art, truth, ethics, law and social relationships. Routledge.
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