Digital Privacy, IT Professionals, and Ethical Framework: A Report

This report delves into the critical topic of digital privacy within the context of IT professionals. It begins with an introduction to digital privacy, defining key terminology and outlining the associated risks such as phishing, malware, and spyware. The report then explores the diverse roles of IT professionals, including technical support, programmers, and network engineers, and examines the personal, social, ethical, and legal impacts arising from their work. A significant portion of the report assesses the relationship between IT professionals and issues of ethics, corporate citizenship, and governance, highlighting potential ethical dilemmas like data breaches and mismanagement. Furthermore, the report analyzes the major issues caused by digital privacy concerns, such as phishing and DoS attacks, and critically reviews IT professional codes of ethics and conduct, culminating in the development of a personal ethical framework. The importance of communication in IT organizations is also discussed, followed by a conclusion summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the importance of digital privacy in today's society. The report is a comprehensive analysis of the subject, providing insights into the ethical and practical considerations for IT professionals in maintaining digital privacy.

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Digital Privacy
Introduction
This report discusses about the basic understanding of the concept of Digital Privacy.
This report also discusses about the variety of role for the IT professionals who has been facing
personal, social, ethical and legal aspects that are caused due to from their tasks. Proper
discussion regarding relationship in between the IT tasks and the issues regarding ethics of
corporate citizenship and governance. Proper discussion regarding the professional association is
also made in this report. Precise reviewing of the IT professional code of ethics and code of
conduct as per development of a personal ethical framework is also stated.
Digital privacy terminology
Digital privacy is mainly concerned with the protection of data of individuals which is
used via platform of internet. Even the data that are stored during the usage of the internet is also
considered to be a vital data that needs proper protection. The data that are published via internet
platform also needs protection in order to prevent the imposters to gain access to the data. Hence
proper steps are to be taken in order to increase the digital privacy. Digital privacy has been a
major concern in case of performing online purchases from the platform of social networking site
or playing any kind of online games (Rice and Sussan 2016). This will be including revealing of
password and identity of the user. The major risks that are present in the commencing of the
digital privacy risk includes the likes of Phishing, Pharming, Malware and Spyware. There are
the technologies that are generally used by the imposters to gain access to the data that are
present in the internet platform. Despite the attacks that are made by the imposters, there are few
steps that are taken by the privacy maintenance teams. The steps include usage of preventative
software application like antivirus, firewall and anti-spam. Even the users need to stay concerned

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regarding the usage of websites. In case the websites that will be used are safe and authenticated,
chances of data breaching and digital privacy can be reduced. Another issue that is needed to be
considered in the process is that personal data should not be provided in any of the public
platform (Christl and Spiekermann 2016). In case there is no personal data leakage in the
process, there will be comparatively less chances of digital privacy issues. Again if the browser
cache is deleted, chances of data privacy related issues occurrence decreases. Password needs to
be strong enough. In case the password is strong enough, it will be acting difficult for the
imposters to gain access to the data that are present in the database.
Variety of roles for IT professionals and the personal, social, ethical and legal impacts arising
from their work
The different job roles that are present in the IT professionals are as follows: -
 Technical Support
 Programmers
 Web Developers
 Computer System Analyst
 IT Security Analyst
 Network Engineer
Personal impact: Technical support job includes handling of client issues that are
regarding IT and mitigating the same. This mitigating of the IT related issues will be pertaining
global issues like requiring proper knowledge of the data of the user (Choi, Lee and Sohn 2017).
This handling of user data might act dangerous in the process. In case the data handling process

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gets inefficient, imposters can gain access to the data and hence wise data privacy issue will be
created. This data mismanagement might affect the clients in a direct manner.
Social Impact: Social Impact that will be imposed is very high. This is the main reason is
because that the vulnerability being transacted in the process will be very high. It is considered
that presence of digital privacy issue will drastically affect the society as the data of the entire
mass will be getting exploited (Sullivan et al, 2018). As the technical support employee’s deals
with the network related issues, it is obvious that the employees will be having access to the
complete data set. Hence wise occurrence of any data privacy the impact will be huge in social
terms.
Ethical Issue: Ethical Issues are also present as in case the employees have access to the
data themselves, they can perform data breaching. As data is completely present and available to
the employees, they find it easy to create digital privacy related issues. Another issue that is
present is that the programmers and the web developers have complete access to the data which
are not even required (Park, Chung and Shin 2018). This ensures that the employees can access
to the complete data set and even they can gain access to the data sets that are not required for
their job purpose. Even without the concern of the genuine users the developers can access to the
data or even the developers can create a framework by which they can constantly keep a watch
over the functioning of the website which will allow them to know each step of the operator.
These the major ethical issues that might arise in the process.
Legal Impact
Legal impact has been one of the major issue that is to be considered in case of the IT
employees working. It is seen that there is has been a violation in OSHA safety. In this case there
are several types of penalties that gets imposed. This ensures that the range of fine will be

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ranging from $7,000 for the entire legal issue to nearly $70,000 for the entire legal issue. It is
also seen that few of the US companies had to pay nearly $6.53 million for compensating with
the issue that is being faced (Kerber 2016).
Assess the relationship in between the IT professionals and the issues of ethics, corporate
citizenship and governance
There is a direct relationship in between the IT professionals and the issues regarding
ethics, corporate citizenship and governance.
The functional process of IT professionals possesses a direct impact on the ethics. The
main aspect that is to be considered is that the IT professionals have access to the complete data
set even the data that are not required. This leads to the fact that the IT professionals might
access the data that is not required for performing their task. Hence gaining access to extra data
which might be personal and private in nature (Deshpande and Nair 2019). Another ethical issue
that is present is that the data handling might get performed in an improper manner. This will
also fall under the ethical issue. Again the security analysts will be completely responsible for
the security system. This will include the fact that entire security system will be known to him
and in case he wants to breach the security. Data Privacy issues might increase and this will be
acting as an ethical issue.
Corporate Citizenship is also one of the major aspect that is to be considered on case of
data privacy issue. This will lead to the fact that proper management of the license management.
Licensing of the activities have been a major concern (Chaffey, Hemphill and Edmundson-Bird
2015). This licensing process might not be followed by the IT professionals and this might
include presence of ethical issues.

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Governance issues will also be affecting the functional process. During the governance
process, the IT professionals needs to have proper data so that the monitoring process can be
performed properly. It can be seen that in case the employees do not have access to the data of
the governed body, the entire governance process will become inefficient. Again in case the
entire data is present digital privacy issues might arise.
Issues faced due to Digital Privacy Issues
The major issues that are present includes the likes of phishing attack. This attack is
basically concerned with the social engineering attack which is caused due to the stealing of the
user data which might include the likes of password stealing and stealing of mail data. Again in
case of the malware attack the main aspect that is considered is that in this case activities are
performed on behalf of the user without his or her concern. DoS attack is also another issue that
is present (Chen, Takabi and Le-Khac 2019). In this case the main aspect that is considered is
that the imposters get into the network and hence wise alters the security credentials, leading to
the fact that the genuine user cannot gain access to the network.
Critically review IT professional code of ethics and code of conduct and develop a personal
ethical framework
The entire section of IT code of ethics, the entire process is diversified in 2 sections.
These are namely, SANS IT code of ethics and ICCP code of ethics. In case of the SANS IT
Code of ethics it basically dwells with the performance of the IT professionals. These codes will
include the acceptance of the IT professionals that he or she will be at a constant learning
process. Proper patching of the computers will also performed for protecting the data that are
present in the data system. This will also be resulting in increase in robustness of the system and

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hence wise reduce the data privacy issues. The IT employee also needs to be a regular user and
must not use the functional process of the Administrator. In case the IT professional logs in as an
administrator, he or she shall be penalized or punished. Again proper passwords are also to be
provided. This proper provisioning of the proper password will be including the fact that higher
robustness in the system can be achieved. These are the main facets of SANS IT Code of ethics.
Again in case of the ICCP code of ethics. These code states that before undertaking any kind of
project proper skill and knowledge is to be developed. Again usage of the scanning tools in the e
mail section will also be required. This will ensure that the data that are transacted via the
platform of e mail, will be protected and data privacy will not arise. This will also be benefitting
the process that decrease in the number of phishing attacks that are occurring. A proper and
confidential relationship is to be maintained with the clients. This section is mainly concerned
for maintaining the data privacy. There are 3 components that are to be considered for the proper
performing of the IT code of conduct. The IT professionals will be requiring to act with integrity,
diligence. Practicing ethical methodologies are also stated. Maintenance of the competitiveness
for maintaining the growth speed is also important.
Importance of communication in IT organization
The importance of organizational communication is very high. The main reason of this
importance is that the functional process will be having a better assessment regarding the
transparency of the business management process. In case the transparency is not maintained the
main issue that will be faced is that improper statement of scope and objective will be provided.
In case the scope and objective of the project the IT professionals are working is unclear then
execution of the project will be highly inefficient. Innovation process can also be implemented

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with proper communication process and hence wise proper execution of project with high
transparency as well as robustness is to be performed.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be stated that Digital privacy has been a major concern
in today’s society. Despite the fact that there are several issues regarding digital privacy,
measures are also present. A proper blend in between information privacy, individual privacy
and communication privacy has been the basic pillar of digital privacy. Digital privacy has been
a major issue since the 21st century. There has been an increasing number of surveillance in
government organization that has been exhibited. It is seen that the government has been taking
several steps for mitigating the digital privacy related issues. Digital privacy has been the global
concern as presence of identity globally has been a major issue that is to be seen with higher
importance. This will ensure that proper mitigation techniques are to be implemented. This
implementation will ensure that robustness in the security process increases.
Recommendation
The recommendations are as follows: -
 Usage of firewall will be beneficial
 Usage of 2 way verification process will also be beneficial
 Usage of antivirus in the system will also be benefitting the system.

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References
Chaffey, D., Hemphill, T. and Edmundson-Bird, D., 2015. Digital business and e-commerce
management. Pearson UK.
Chen, L., Takabi, H. and Le-Khac, N.A. eds., 2019. Security, Privacy, and Digital Forensics in
the Cloud. John Wiley & Sons.
Choi, H.S., Lee, W.S. and Sohn, S.Y., 2017. Analyzing research trends in personal information
privacy using topic modeling. Computers & Security, 67, pp.244-253.
Christl, W. and Spiekermann, S., 2016. Networks of control. A report on corporate surveillance,
digital tracking, big data & privacy. facultas.
Deshpande, V.M. and Nair, M.K., 2019. Digital Privacy and Data Security in Cloud-Based
Services: A Call for Action. In Integrated Intelligent Computing, Communication and
Security (pp. 251-260). Springer, Singapore.
Kerber, W., 2016. Digital markets, data, and privacy: competition law, consumer law and data
protection. Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, 11(11), pp.856-866.
Park, Y.J., Chung, J.E. and Shin, D.H., 2018. The structuration of digital ecosystem, privacy, and
big data intelligence. American Behavioral Scientist, 62(10), pp.1319-1337.
Rice, J.C. and Sussan, F., 2016. Digital privacy: A conceptual framework for business. Journal
of Payments Strategy & Systems, 10(3), pp.260-266.
Sullivan, M., Rainey, H., Cross, W. and Nakasone, S., 2018. Digital Safety and Privacy: Raising
Awareness Through Library Outreach.