A Detailed Case Study on IT Ethics: Cambridge Analytica

This case study delves into the IT ethics surrounding the Cambridge Analytica data breach, which involved the unauthorized access and use of Facebook user data. It examines the incident from three distinct ethical perspectives: professional ethics, philosophical ethics, and sociological ethics. Th...Read More

Running head: IT ETHICS
IT Ethics: Cambridge Analytica
Name of Student-
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Author’s Note-

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Case Study Taken............................................................................................................................1
Professional Ethics Perspectives......................................................................................................2
Philosophical Ethics Perspectives....................................................................................................3
Sociological Ethics Perspectives.....................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
The word ethics is defined by many authors in many different ways. One such definition
by (Tavani, 2015) states that ethics is a particular branch of philosophy that includes defending
as well as systematic concepts and finally recommends different concepts of correct conducts
and different concepts of incorrect conducts. Ethics consists of three basic areas including the
Meta Ethics, normative ethics as well as applied ethics. Meta ethics is an area where there is
theoretical meaning along with the references consisting of moral proposition and the way by
which true value can be determined. Secondly, comes the normative ethics. This area deals with
practical means that mainly determines action of moral course. The last area is the applied ethics
which deals with what a person is permitted of doing in a particular domain of situation or action
(Fromm, 2013). This report consists of three different perspectives of ethics related to
Cambridge Analytica case study. The perspective that are explained in this report is Professional
Ethics Perspectives, Philosophical Ethics Perspectives, and Sociological Ethics Perspectives.
Case Study Taken
In the month of April 2018, a data breach took place taking the data of Facebook users
and Politico by Cambridge Analytica. Around 87 million data were breached. The data breach
incident for the Facebook included total collection of all the personal data of the affected users
(Niebuhr, 2013). A data mining organization, known as Cambridge Analytica was particularly
responsible for the data breach who were accessing the data of the Facebook users illegally by
some other quizzing application. They have taken the data for making different psychological
profiles for the targeting voter along with political advertisements (Badshah, 2018). This scandal

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was firstly made public by some whistle blower and after that Facebook got to know about the
data breach.
Professional Ethics Perspectives
From the word professional ethics, it can be cleared that professional ethics deals with
corporate and the personal behavior standards that are mostly expected by professionals. The
perspective ethics is the first perspective of the applied ethics (Niebuhr, 2013). The professionals
who are working allegedly in acknowledged professions possesses some specialized skills as
well as knowledge. Utilizing proper knowledge is mainly governed when there is any particular
service is provides to public for some purpose that considers moral issue. So, this is known as
professional ethics perspective. The professional ethics of applied ethics consists of capabilities
that undertake different decisions, make particular judgments, reach to informed decisions with
the situation and then finally apply the skills.
There are many components that are involved in the perspective of professional ethics.
The components that are involved are honesty, accountability, respect, obedience to law,
objectivity, loyalty, confidentiality, transparency, and integrity. These components helps all the
persons involved to identify the ethical approaches. It is very important to implement
professional ethics properly in any organization or in any case study (Crane & Matten, 2016).
The components of professional ethics are responsible for preventing all the exploitation of client
and also helps to preserve the integrities that are involved in the professional ethics. The
professional ethics also helps to check benefit of client and also provides benefits to all the
people involved in that profession.

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The case study that is taken deals with data breach of 87 million Facebook users by
Cambridge Analytica, which is a data mining firm. They hacked the personal data of the users
for making their political advertisements. The data that were accessed by Cambridge Analytica
were accessed illegally which hampered the ethics of 87 million users. The phenomenon that was
used helped the professionals of the mining firm to act with conscience for practicing with the
knowledge that were undermined commercially (Frank, 2013). It was the duty of the Facebook
officials to save all the data. Facebook is the most famous as the maximum used social
networking in world. According to the professional ethics, it was the duty of Facebook to save all
the data of its user. But, the organization was failed to do that. Because of this reason, the ICT
case study that is taken does not satisfies the professional ethics perspective related to the applied
ethics and is completely unprofessional and is unethical.
Philosophical Ethics Perspectives
The second most perspective in the applied ethics is the philosophical ethics. In the
philosophical ethics, human conducts are considered, specifically the conducts which are correct
or are incorrect as well as human conducts that are good or are bad. The philosophical ethics are
considered as projects which attempts the using of proper reasoning that answers different types
of ethical questions (Lacan, 2013). The philosophical ethics consists of moral principles where
the traditional principles as well as individual principles are checked. The philosophical ethics
mainly differs from cultural, legal, religious, as well as personal ethics, which includes in
seeking the conduct of entire study of principles as well as ethics by rational outlook and secular
outlook. The outlook that is considered is mainly grounded by happiness of the human beings or
the well living of the human beings.

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The main benefit that are considered as the philosophical approach in the ethics is in this
approach of ethics, some specific approaches mostly avoids proper demanding of religion and
the law and also avoids proper subjectivity, unpredictability, and illogicality mostly for
characterizing the personal and the cultural moral view (Tavani, 2015). There are mainly two
distinct as well as related traditions that are involved in modern philosophical ethics which are
related to fact for resolving ethical characteristics of action. The first of the two tradition that are
involved in the modern philosophical ethics includes actions that cannot compromise the
intrinsic characteristics of ethics (Peters, 2015). The first tradition also requires moral status from
the consequences that are flowing commonly. The second tradition includes the action that states
the right or the wrong intrinsically.
The Facebook data breach that is taken as a case study, the perspective of philosophical
ethics are unethical and do not follow philosophical nature. The data breach of Facebook hacked
almost personal data of 87 million users (Sorokin, 2017). As a result of this, the human actions as
well as moral virtues within the case was totally hampered. The Cambridge Analytica took the
access of all the personal data. The data breach hampers the perspective of philosophical ethics
and the data breach is totally unethical in nature.
Sociological Ethics Perspectives
The last perspective of the applied ethics that is analyzed in the report is the perspective
of descriptive ethics or the sociological ethics. The descriptive ethics mainly is defined as a study
including the beliefs as well as disbeliefs of different people that are related with morality. The
descriptive or the sociological ethics largely contrasts the ethics that are significant with the
perspective as well as normative ethics (Durkheim, 2013). This includes the study of ethical

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theories that prescribes the people to act accordingly. The social responsibility that is included in
the ethical theory consists of individuals that accountably fulfill all the civic duties in the
organization. There are many types of actions related to a particular person that provides
advantage to the society and the actions also exists with proper balance within the society
welfare and the economic growth of the society. If this equilibrium is maintained subsequently,
only then the social responsibility as well as descriptive responsibility can be accomplished
easily and promptly (Nussbaum, 2013). The perspective sociology theory or the descriptive
theory depends completely on the ethics of the system where the decisions as well as actions are
validated ethically before preceding any kind of decision or any type of action that causes harm
in the society. This is commonly considered as the socially irresponsible acts.
The case that this report deals with the Facebook data breach which does not fulfill the
social or descriptive ethics perspective. The Facebook data breach mainly dealt with data
hacking of 87 million users whose data were at risks (Niebuhr, 2013). So, fulfilling all social
responsibilities was totally a failure in this data breach and there was also a data breach in the
sociological ethics. This data breach case study is unethical according to the perspective of social
or descriptive ethics.
Conclusion
From the contents discussed above, the details of applied ethics is conducted in the study.
The applied ethics can be defined as that significant branch that mainly concern with detailed
analysis to all specific moral issues in the private life as well as public life. There are three main
theories that are discussed in the applied ethics which includes utilitarianism theory, virtue
ethics, and deontology theory. The three mentioned theories are altogether termed as modern

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approach in the applied ethics. The ethics is mainly considered as a concerned value matter that
comprises of the axiology of philosophy branch. The philosophical ethics mainly seeks for
solving the different questions which are related to the morality of human mostly by defining the
good concepts as well as evil concepts, right concepts as well as wrong concepts. The report
above mainly consists of recent case study of ICT data breach of Facebook by a data mining
organization Cambridge Analytica.

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References
Badshah, N. (2018). Facebook to contact 87 million users affected by data breach. Retrieved
from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/08/facebook-to-contact-the-87-
million-users-affected-by-data-breach
Crane, A., & Matten, D. (2016). Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and
sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
Durkheim, E. (2013). Professional ethics and civic morals. Routledge.
Frank, A. W. (2013). The wounded storyteller: Body, illness, and ethics. University of Chicago
Press.
Fromm, E. (2013). Man for himself: An inquiry into the psychology of ethics. Routledge.
Lacan, J. (2013). The ethics of psychoanalysis 1959-1960: The seminar of Jacques Lacan.
Routledge.
Niebuhr, R. (2013). Moral man and immoral society: A study in ethics and politics. Westminster
John Knox Press.
Noddings, N. (2013). Caring: A relational approach to ethics and moral education. Univ of
California Press.
Nussbaum, M. C. (2013). The therapy of desire: Theory and practice in Hellenistic ethics.
Princeton University Press.
Peters, R. S. (2015). Ethics and Education (Routledge Revivals). Routledge.

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Sorokin, P. (2017). Social and cultural dynamics: A study of change in major systems of art,
truth, ethics, law and social relationships. Routledge.
Tavani, H. T. (2015). Levels of Trust in the Context of Machine Ethics. Philosophy &
Technology, 28(1), 75-90.