University Report: Ethical Issues in Information System Professionals

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the ethical issues confronting information system professionals. It delves into the definition of an information system professional, emphasizing adherence to ethical standards, data privacy, and professional conduct. The report explores various ethical dilemmas such as data privacy violations, intellectual property rights, misuse of computers, and anti-discrimination practices. It also examines how information system professionals address business and social issues, including technological advancements and social equity. The findings highlight factors contributing to ethical issues, such as ineffective data protection, intellectual property law violations, misuse of computers, and unprofessional conduct. The report concludes by emphasizing the significance of information systems in business and technological advancements, highlighting the need for ethical considerations in the field. This report draws on feedback from presentations and research to provide a detailed analysis of the ethical landscape in information systems.

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Introduction
A professional is personnel who adhere to the ethical code of conducts and one who is ready
to be governed by the code of ethics to ensure high level of competency and integrity lies on
his profession. Professionals are set of examples or role models to the society and therefore
they are considered as specialized personnel who can serve the society in a professional way.
Professionals are the most trusted and accepted people in the society who are believed to
have specialized skills and high level of competency in a particular field and are able to be
part in serving the society. Research confirms that professionals apply their skills in various
fields in the society and therefore they help in reviving the society by sharing the ideas to the
society. An information system professional is personnel who are competent in a particular
field of technology used in various sectors of the economy in the world in the digital age.
They are competent in ensuring data privacy, data security, and quality of service rendered by
the organizations involved as well as ensuring operations are carried out in an ethical way
Škorecová and Farkašová, (2008)
Most of the information system professions are faced by ethical issues such as the privacy of
data, the security of the data and the nature of the service. Basing on career choice, in order to
develop professionalism in particular field, interest towards the career is the most
contributing factor in developing the professionalism .Information system profession is
important in addressing business in the field of advertisement and communication.
Information integrity is an aspect required in the information system profession, it is more
advantageous in the sense that when integrity is concerned or applied in various fields,
effective plan, development and operations of the organizations will be upheld. There are
some of the ethical issues that have been experienced in the information system such as the
issue of cyber crime which has a negative impact on the information system profession as
well as the businesses. The report therefore focuses on major ethical issues surrounding

information system professionals according to the feedback provided in the presentations
from the interview carried out.
What an information system professional means to be.
According to the feedback received from the presentation, an information system professional
is meant to be personnel who adhere to the ethical standards and performs the respective
duties given in line with the codes of conduct. In addition to that, he or she must be
concerned about the legal issues relating to the privacy and the security of data .Nevertheless,
as a profession, the level of competency and integrity should be upheld. Mather, (2007)
Being a professional, one must also be concerned on ways of solving problems encountered
in an organization in a more mature and professional way.
Career choice
According to the research, career is developed when one recognizes his best profession
earlier develops interest and work towards it and creating knowledge out of the profession
resulting from the research. In addition to that, developing the goals to achieve and later
achieving those goals is a way of motivation toward believing on your career development. In
addition to that, an individual must possess high level of integrity and show high level of
commitments toward the career. McLean, (2011) Nevertheless, as an information system
professional, he or she must have motivational objectives that could guide the individual
towards achieving the set goals. Career development is also developed by supervision by
senior profession in that field whereby an individual is guided on the way of attaining the
objectives.
Ethical issues information system professionals face on their work.

Ethical issues are factors that can either affect an individual positively or negatively in an
organization. From the research, some of the ethical issues encountered by information
system professional in an organization includes; data protection and privacy, legal and ethical
issues in their organization. Most of the information system professions are faced by ethical
issues such as the privacy of data, the security of the data and the nature of the service.
Basing on career choice, in order to develop professionalism in particular field, interest
towards the career is the most contributing factor in developing the
professionalism .Information system profession is important in addressing business in the
field of advertisement and communication. Information integrity is an aspect required in the
information system profession, it is more advantageous in the sense that when integrity is
concerned or applied in various fields, effective plan, development and operations of the
organizations will be upheld. There are some of the ethical issues that have been experienced
in the information system such as the issue of cyber crime which has a negative impact on the
information system profession as well as the businesses.
Data privacy
Data privacy, according to the feedback from the presentation, data privacy is an ethical issue
facing professionals in an organization, for example the access on the employee data by the
employer through online sites such as through emails in circumstances when the employer is
monitoring the employees in an organization, however in some situations an employer may
go deeply accessing the information that the employee couldn’t allow to be accessed by
anyone Barki, Titah and Boffo, (2007). Therefore in any case of inspection that is to be
undertaken in an organization, employees should be informed before in order to keep them
well planned on what information should be transferred from the email to avoid the issue of
confidential data leakage.

Professional code of conduct
According to the feedback from the presentation, an employer may behave in an
unprofessional manner in the organization without adhering to the code of conduct of ethics
governing the rights of employees; this act of behavior can pose a great challenge to the
employees. Some of the unprofessional behavior is like employer favoritism, lack of
transparency in sharing of information and unfairness in the organization which is a great
challenge that affects the employees.
Intellectual property law
According to the feedback from the presentation, intellectual property is a way of protecting
the organization property and the organization information. Intellectual property includes the
rights against unhealthy competition, moral rights and trade secrets, ethical issues arises when
the above rights are not effectively upheld in an organization
Legal and ethical issues relating to misuse on the use of computers
According to the feedback from the presentation ethical issues arises due to the effect of
inappropriate use of computers such as for example the issue of cyber crime and social media
misbehavior which can negatively affect the organization image as well as the employees. In
addition to that computer abuse is also a form of misusing the computer where information
professionals who take advantage of target internet users ,whereby they send information to
them via emails commonly known as spam to market their products yet the target audience
on the product they are marketing.

Anti-discrimination of employees into the field of work
According to the feedback from the presentation, ethical issues arises whereby there exist
discrimination of individuals with certain profession into the industry, this may be due to the
issue of corruption in the organization, therefore resulting into lose in the skills of an
individual since he or she does not exercise the profession into action. How information
system profession address business issues and social issue.
How information system professional addresses business issues and social issues
Professions apply their knowledge and skills into the field of business mostly in dealing with
the problems facing most of the businesses in the world. For example the information system
professions may come up with the new technology that could improve business operations. In
addition to that they may offer professional education on proper use of technology in order to
avoid the issue of, for example the access of credit cards by criminals which could lead to
financial loss of the business profit margin. Information system personnel may advise
business individuals own ways of marketing their organizations and effective location of the
business.
Social issues basically involve issues that affect people and employees in an organization or
the environment surrounding them as well as the society as a whole. From the presentation
feedback it was identified that various social issues facing information system, that needs to
be addressed by the professionals includes employees bullying, denial of employees rights
inequality in handling the employees and gender work place diversity. The major social issue
facing the digital age is lack of equity and access to internet despite the current rapid change

in technology, most people in the society own computers yet lack enough knowledge on
accessing them, the information system professionals have addressed the social issue by
ensuring that proper training is offered to people to make them familiarize on ways of
accessing the information in the internet. By doing that in the long run professionals ensure
there is equity and access of internet information by everyone.
Findings
According to the feedback from the presentations, it was found out that, ethical issues in the
information system profession in an organization are due to various reasons, some of the
factors contributing to the rise of ethical issues are as follows, for example the issue of data
privacy and protection, the intellectual property law, legal and ethical issues relating to the
misuse of computers and the anti-discrimination of employee employment into the industry.
This actually has contributed to the poor planning, development and effective operations of in
an organization. László Szőke, (2016) Also it has an impact of reducing the discipline
conduct of the information system professions. Ineffective data protection in the organization,
this is brought about by the effect of unsecure way of storing data. Bradbury,( 2007) The
unsafe data storage may bring about the effect of hacking useful information which might be
useful to the organization and also unsecured login details may lead to the loss of data since
the data can be accessed by attackers and can result into lose of information.
Ineffective intellectual property law, intellectual property law protects the information from
being accessed by unauthorized personnel since one has the copyright already against any
access by unauthorized personnel. Parker, (2009) Lack of effective laws governing the use of
computers in sharing of the information via the internet, is a major factor that actually has
caused the rise of ethical issues in an organization, for example unsecured login details in the
computer can bring about the loss of information, in that the information contained in the

computers will be easily accessed by authorized person due to the familiarity of the login
details of accessing the information in the computer. French, (2014)
It was also found out that, ineffective data security is a major threat that has actually
contributed to the rise of ethical issues in the information system profession among the
professionals, in that the issue of hacking of the information and the misuse of data due to
ineffective security attached to the information system. Lee, (2014) It was also found that
Inappropriate code of conduct by some of the professions is a contributing factor to rise in
ethical issues in that some professions may find themselves engaging in illegal activities that
is against the legal rules governing their code of conduct like engaging in hacking of
information which he or she should not be accessed to, hacking of information is a form of
ethical issue arising from the misconduct of the individuals in the organization or many other
individuals from other areas. In addition, upholding of information integrity in the
information system is a way of ensuring proper planning, development, effective running of
the business operations.
Conclusion
In conclusion ,information system has greatly contributed to the progressions of many
business enterprises such as the face book companies and many other business oriented
enterprises, it has also contributed to the development of information technology which has
brought about current changes on better methods of improving the businesses and creation of
job opportunities. An information system profession is an individual or a profession with high
level of competency in the field of technology. Volkert, Jiang and Xu, (2015) an information
system profession should be an individual with high level of competency, skilled and
knowledgeable on a particular technological field. In addition to that, an information system
profession is an individual with integrity of information. Integrity of information is the most

essential element in the organization. Professionals with higher level of integrity in
information bring about the progression in business organization, in that proper plan, positive
development and smooth running of the organizations operations.
There are various ethical issues that are encountered in an organization such as the data
privacy, which involves the protection of confidential data from being accessed by authorized
personnel. The act data loss is due to the fact that due to increased rate of hacking of
information by an authorized personnel, confidentiality of the message is lost since it has
been hacked by the personnel. Moran and Marchionini, (2012) there are various challenges
that affect the information system such as the issue of information hacking, cyber crime, the
computer viruses that may cause the loss of data in a computer device. For an effective
information system operation, various implementations should be done in order to ensure
proper plan, development and business operations of the organization are effectively run
smoothly, this can be done through enriching the professional individuals with information
integrity Kalisdha, (2012). This will enable the personnel with the skills and knowledge on
how to overcome ethical issues they encounter in their work during the operations.

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