Data Ethics and Privacy Report: Employee Monitoring and Data Breaches

This report examines crucial aspects of data ethics and privacy, presenting three case studies. The first case study explores the benefits of preventing ethical issues over litigation, focusing on employee internet usage monitoring. The report discusses whether monitoring is ethical and suggests solutions to mitigate privacy concerns. The second case study analyzes the ethics of classification, particularly in healthcare settings, examining the ethical implications of using attributes like weight and chronic illness. The report suggests alternative tools and measures hospitals can take to protect patient data. The final case study investigates privacy and security breaches at Acxiom, outlining steps the company should take to enhance data security and exploring the government's role in accessing private sector data for security purposes. The report concludes with a summary of key findings and recommendations.

Data ethics and privacy

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Ethics can be described as moral principles that directs the behaviour of person or performing an
activity. Privacy refers to the right of an individual to control the access to a particular type of personal
information. One of the major element of privacy is right to be free from interference. The Report is
based on three different types of case studies. First case study is related with whether prevention is good
than litigation. Second case study is based on the ethics of classification. Last case study is based on
privacy and security breaches at Acxiom.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
1.0 Prevention better than litigation............................................................................................4
2.0 The Ethics of classification...................................................................................................4
3.0 Privacy and security breaches at Acxiom. ...........................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Companies should balance the concerns related with employee privacy that requires to restrict the
unethical behaviour of employee’s that may hurt the business (Raguseo, 2018). Privacy and security are
closely related with each other. The Report will outline is it ethical to monitor internet usage of
employee’s, solution that helps to avoid ethical issues, Steps that firm should take to increase privacy and
security of data etc.
MAIN BODY
1.0 Prevention better than litigation.
1.1 Is it ethical to monitor workers to detect access.
In ethical manner the employer of an organisation may evaluate the internet usage of the
employee’s. Monitoring is perfectly acceptable because it helps organisation to ensure that whether
employee’s are abusing the resources of organisation or not. They should be refrain from wrong use of
the property of firm. As per the given case study, companies requires to develop policies to determine the
use of internet by employee’s. It is also essential that, organisation should obtain consent of employee’s
before monitoring the use of internet by them (Fort, Raymond and Shackelford, 2016). There must be a
clause in employment contract in respect of monitoring practise of the firm. If, company does not follow
this in that case, it will result in breach of law. But if employer clarifies all things then it will be OK.
1.2 Analytical solution that may avoid privacy and ethical issues.
There are various solutions that will help to avoid ethical and privacy issues in the organisation.
For example – Manager of company may walk to the desk of employee’s and then notice the use of
internet. This will help to monitor the use of computer by employee’s. Due to this management will have
sound reason to suspect that employee is wasting time through unnecessary use of computer (Chory,
Vela and Avtgis, 2016). Further, business may also use the tool that helps to measure and report the use
of internet by employee’s. This may bring up issues related with ethics. Business have to follow rules and
laws related with monitoring.
2.0 The Ethics of classification.
2.1 Whether attributes is ethical in case study ?
According to the case study, using attributes such as marital status, weight and chronic illness is
ethical in hospital. Patients must be classified based on their weight, and others things which helps to
provide better treatment. Hospitals gather information about their patients based on demographics. In
order to improve the health of people management collect all essential data about patients in which they
consider each and every aspects that is quite normal and included in ethical practices. Classification
contributes to positive patients recovery and improve their mental and physical quality of life while taking

a good treatment. Weight, chronic illness and other attributes measured by management in order to make
plan for health and care services provided by professionals to people. It means that using these above
attributes hospital and their workers work ethically they cater the best and appropriate services to people
which make them able to improve health and feel good. Chronic illness is human health condition that
effects on human life. Without getting information about health diseases or situation health care staff
cannot be able to provide good treatment.
2.2 Attributes consider in classification model.
Age, weight, chronic illness and marital statues are different types of attributes which has been
considered in classification model. All these had consider in order to achieve positive outcomes of
hospital. Hospitals wants to increased their profitability as well as productivity, they provide better
services to patients for improving their health which is beneficial for them as well as others. Management
classify patient based on their weight, chronic conditions etc. that is totally ethical. They determine the
age of person, which is very essential for health care staff to cater treatments. Collecting important data
from patients medical history or chronic condition is required for effective clinical decision taking while
sympathy is applicable for people satisfaction. Management in hospital secure the data or information
about patients, they need to be very serious about privacy concern that helps to build trust and strong
connection between hospital and its patient. Attributes need to be considered by admission departments in
which used all the gathered data for making the most appropriate decision.
2.3 Solution to help achieve hospital desires results.
There are various other tools that hospitals can use other than classification model. Organisation
can use Info buttons which is one of the best tool to classify data of patients. Info buttons help to forecast
information that clinician requires that may have by using electronic medical records which is also known
as EMR system (Oravec, 2017). This will be implemented with the help of software component which is
known as Info button Manager. Further, hospitals may use attribute selection techniques. This will help to
avoid redundant and unnecessary information from a set of data. Automated selection methods are
categorized into attribute ranking methods and subset evaluation methods. It helps to assess merit of
individual variables for determining other types of attributes. This method is used at initial screening to
minimize dimensionality in large size data. It helps to determine usefulness of subsets of various
attributes.
2.4 Measures that hospital take to protect its patents.
According to the case study, hospital take measures to protect their patients information being
used unethically. They need to used high protective systems for storing personal data about patients
effectively. Administration department secure data in hardware systems which is beneficial for them as to
gain trust of people (Al-Ali and Raths, Masimo Corporation, 2017). When they assure people

management concern towards data protection they can build strong connection with patients and
increased their profit margin. They need to manage identity of people and access more strictly in health
care programs, management keep all the records about patients history. Managing data and patients
personal info it very important in hospitals. HIPAA protects people rights to confidentiality of their
medical history. Management store patients information in computer with strong passwords that no can
open without taking permission of high authority. Most of the patients information is being used
unethically that bring many challenges for hospital and impact on its market images. But with the help of
technology they can reduce chance as failure and prevent data effectively from being misused.
3.0 Privacy and security breaches at Acxiom.
3.1 Steps company should take to increase privacy and security of data ?
◦ Follow data protection act: Acxion must comply with data protection act in order to
maintain all the information secure and safe.
◦ Create robust policy for handling sensitive data: Quoted firm needs to segregate between
its sensitive and non- sensitive data and then provide training session to their employees
related to handling some important information (Soria-Comas and Domingo-Ferrer, 2016).
◦ Encrypt the data: Acxion needs to encrypt the data and also focus on the password security
as well , so that the data did not be share with third party. Firm mat also benefit from the
rollout a password management application as well.
Introduce identity and access management: By introducing IBM, company make sure that all their data
is accesses securely and this advance technology also helps the company to identify correct mapping as
well. Further, it also help the firm to access who is accessing which type of data and breach any law.
3.2 Whether government should have access to private sector data ?
Yes, government needs to access the private sector data because it helps to improve the quality of
business and also take better consumer decision making policy. On the other hand, it may also helps to
enhance or maintain individuals confidence as well as trust in the way, information may be used. As per
the research, it is also analysed that government should commission the Productivity commission in order
to improve usage of data and also enhance the consumer outcomes as well (Rubinfeld and Gal, 2017).
Therefore, in order to remove the privacy risk, it is quite essential for the firm to provide access to the
government related to private sector data. Moreover, if government have access of all the data, then it also
encourage the use of appropriately public data in order to inform the government and also increase trust
among government to strongly determine their acceptance of surveillance as well.
3.3 Need to access security data for security reasons.
Industry deal in telecommunication sector needs to be provide access to security data to the
government because this company deals with technology and it is quite essential for the firm to maintain

security as well as confidentiality. In the same way, the government recently pass Telecommunication
and Other legislation Amendments act, 2018 that further allows the agencies to greater access the
encrypted all the messages which are even sent on whats app (Dunlap, Cummings and Janicki, 2017). On
the other side, the company such as Vodafone in telecommunication sector, Top retail firm must comply
with data Protection act in order to maintain all information secure as well as keep the data confidential as
well.
CONCLUSION
The above Report has explained that, companies should provide information in the form of clause
regarding monitoring the use of internet by the employee’s. This will help to resolve ethical issues that
may arise later. ERM system is one of the useful method that helps to classify patient data in ethical
manner. It has been concluded that, government needs to access the private sector data because it helps to
improve the quality oftransactions and also take better consumer decision making policy.
REFERENCES
Books and Journals -
Al-Ali, A. and Raths, C., Masimo Corporation, 2017. Systems and methods to monitor repositioning of a
patient. U.S. Patent Application 15/253,482.
Al-Ali, A., Masimo Corp, 2017. Wireless patient monitoring systems and methods. U.S. Patent
Application 15/253,567.
Chory, R.M., Vela, L.E. and Avtgis, T.A., 2016. Organizational surveillance of computer-mediated
workplace communication: employee privacy concerns and responses. Employee Responsibilities and
Rights Journal. 28(1). pp.23-43.
Dunlap, L., Cummings, J. and Janicki, T., 2017. Information security and privacy legislation: current state
and future direction. In Proceedings of the Conference on Information Systems Applied Research
ISSN (Vol. 2167, p. 1508).
El Emam, K., Rodgers, S. and Malin, B., 2015. Anonymising and sharing individual patient data. Bmj,
350. p.h1139.
Fort, T.L., Raymond, A.H. and Shackelford, S.J., 2016. Angel on Your Shoulder: Prompting Employees
to Do the Right Thing through the Use of Wearables, The. Nw. J. Tech. & Intell. Prop. 14. p.139.
Oravec, J.A., 2017, July. Emerging “cyber hygiene” practices for the Internet of Things (IoT):
professional issues in consulting clients and educating users on IoT privacy and security. In 2017 IEEE
International Professional Communication Conference (ProComm) (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
Raguseo, E., 2018. Big data technologies: An empirical investigation on their adoption, benefits and risks
for companies. International Journal of Information Management. 38(1). pp.187-195.

Rubinfeld, D.L. and Gal, M.S., 2017. Access barriers to big data. Ariz. L. Rev.. 59. p.339.
Soria-Comas, J. and Domingo-Ferrer, J., 2016. Big data privacy: challenges to privacy principles and
models. Data Science and Engineering. 1(1). pp.21-28.