5th IFIP-WG9.2 Namur Award Lecture
Namur, January 14th, 2000
Internet ethics are not optional at business or at home - Summary
by Professor Simon Rogerson
Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility
De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
URL: http://www.ccsr.cse.dmu.ac.uk/staff/Srog/srog.html
The Internet
The development of an expanding set of international information networks,
known as the Internet, has been one of the most influential applications
of computers and telecommunications. This phenomenon has led to millions
of people being interconnected and this will grow to over 200 million by
the year 2000. It has evolved from a closed world of specialists and experts
to a common and commercial universe open to the general public. The networks
of the virtual society offer exceptional possibilities for exchanging information
and acquiring knowledge, and provide new opportunities for growth and job
creation. However, at the same time, they conceal risks to human rights
and alter the infrastructure of traditional public and private operations.
The problems
Johnson (1997) explains that the potential benefit of the Internet is being
devalued by antisocial behaviour including unauthorised access, theft of
electronic property, launching of viruses, racism and harassment. These
have raised new ethical, cultural, economic and legal questions which have
led many to consider the feasibility and desirability of regulation in
this area. Similarly, it is questionable whether technological counter
measures will be very effective either. The absence of effective formal
legal or technological controls presents grave dangers to the virtual society.
Consequently, there is a need to rely heavily upon our ethical standards.
Internet ethics
Johnson (1997) suggests that there are three general ethical principles
that promote acceptable behaviour in the virtual society:
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know the rules of the on-line forums being used and adhere to them,
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respect the privacy and property rights of others and if in doubt assume
both are expected,
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do not deceive, defame or harass others.
Such principles appear to be built upon core values which most if not all
humans would subscribe to. Moor (1998) suggests that such core values are
life, happiness, ability, freedom, knowledge, resources and security. However,
Moor explains that, "To say that we share the core values is only the first
step in the argument toward grounding ethical judgements. The most evil
villain and the most corrupt society will exhibit core human values on
an individual basis. Possessing core human values is a sign of being rational
but not a sufficient condition for being ethical. To adopt the ethical
point of view one must respect others and their core values. ... If we
respect the core values of everyone, then we have some standards by which
to evaluate actions and policies." This appears to be an effective conceptual
way to address the ethical issues related to the Internet.
Business
The outcome of not subscribing to such principles is likely to result in
chaos overwhelming democratic dialogue, absolute freedom overwhelming responsibility
and accountability, and emotions triumphing over reason (Badaracco and
Useemm, 1997). For businesses operating in the virtual society these principles
can be expanded into a number of explicit actions such as:
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Establish an electronic mail policy that forbids forgery of electronic
mail messages, tampering with the email of other users, sending harassing,
obscene or other threatening email and sending unsolicited junk mail and
chain letters.
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Clarify the responsibilities of those involved in providing information.
The publisher is the producer of the on-line information and is, in the
main, responsible for that information. The producer therefore must be
identifiable at all times. It is arguable that people can only be held
responsible for things they can control. Access providers take this line
refuting responsibility for the wrong-doings of users, because their contribution
as access providers is purely technical.
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Develop international co-operation that will encourage the creation of
common descriptions for Internet services, transparency which would benefit
users, and respect for trademarks, and increase the possibility of global
access to the Internet on demand.
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Encourage the development of legitimate electronic commerce that upholds
consumer protection through the use of standard contracts and technical
mechanisms. Many issues need to be taken into account including the validity
of the electronic signature, the solvency of the purchaser, the legitimacy
of the vendor, the security of the transaction and the payment of appropriate
sales taxes.
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Establish a body for handling customer complaints and reviewing Internet
activity of the organisation. This body would be in contact with public
and private international groups that are competent in Internet affairs.
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Train employees in ethical Internet practice and promote Internet awareness
within the wider community.
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Promote a greater equality of access to the Internet through multilingual
and multicultural support. This counters the current situation where the
Internet is an Anglo-Saxon network with 80% of servers being North American
and 90% of exchanges taking place in English.
Such actions provide the means for self regulation that would combat the
regulatory flux surrounding the Internet and might lead to effective policies
regarding transparency, responsibility and respect of appropriate legal
frameworks.
Home
The home will be the physical location of the virtual society. Many of
the organisations with which people interact have used computer technology
to provide new forms of interaction that can take place from the home.
Information has quickly become one of the most valuable commodities of
our society. Information in the future is likely to take many different
forms. Taylor (1995) suggests that information will be domesticated as
utility networks reach the home of most people and information appliances
become cheaper, intuitive to use and interactive. He suggests the types
of services and products that might bring about this domestication. They
include: tele-healthcare, tele-education, entertainment and media, real
time information services, electronic publishing, digital imaging and photography,
virtual zoos and wild life experience, virtual reality experiences and
tele-travel. In a short space of time most of Taylor’s list has become
a reality. It is a total information experience. Indeed E.everything has
arrived.
We must be wary of the potential
dangers. For example, children can be exploited to reveal personal
information about themselves, or they might go one expensive Internet shopping
sprees or they might down load unsuitable material such as pornographic
picture or they might become emotional upset from inadvertently visiting
a stealth site (Silverthorne, 1999). Certain practical measures can be
used such as filters, locating computers in a family space and restricting
the amount of time children can be on-line each day but what is vital is
sound moral education. As Karen Jaffe, executive director of KidsNet, a
non-profit organisation devoted to children and the media explains, "The
most important thing is having conversations with your children about your
own values. You can have the V-chip and filters, but if your child doesn't
have a sense of what is appropriate as defined by the values of the family
or school, then none of this matters."
A second example concern healthcare. The growing moves to create electronic
patient records covering a patient’s complete medical history from the
cradle to the grave is a good illustration of why we must be extremely
careful in the way information is created and distributed particularly
over the Internet. Certainly the electronic patient record allows providers,
patients and payers to interact more efficiently and in life-enhancing
ways. It offers new methods of storing, manipulating and communicating
medical information which are more powerful and flexible than paper based
systems and can accommodate processing of non-textual medical information
such as images, sound, video and tactile sense. There are, however, potential
problems. The electronic patient record will hold a complete profile of
the individual comprising personal and medical details. Access to this
information much be carefully controlled ensuring such access is limited
to only the relevant and authorised portion of the information. Since medical
details contain some sensitive information such as past drug use or genetic
predisposition to various diseases it is important to keep this information
truly private. There will always be tension and trade-off between the need-to-know
and the right to confidentiality. Misdiagnoses are quite rare, but far
from unheard of. Procedures must be in place to ensure that once an error
is identified the electronic patient record is corrected and all points
of distribution informed of the error. Finally, inaccurate data input can
be potentially life threatening in this application. It is particularly
difficult to correct inaccurate data given the global distribution via
for example, the Internet, of this information to primary and secondary
healthcare providers.
Conclusion
The Internet will change society. We must be aware of the potential benefits
and dangers and be prepared to challenge any antisocial activity. Therefore,
Internet ethics are not optional, they must become a way of virtual life
at work and in the home. Only then will we reap the benefits that this
amazing technology offers.
References
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Badaracco, J.L. and Useemm J.V. (1997), The Internet, Intel and the vigilante
stakeholder, Business Ethics: A European Review, Vol. 6 No 1, January,
18-29.
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Johnson, D.G. (1997), Ethics online, Communications of the ACM,
Vol. 40 No 1, January, pp 60-65.
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Silverthorne, S. (1999) Online safety rules of the road, accessed at http://familypc.zdnet.com/safety/security/feature/21d2/.
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Taylor, J. (1997) The networked home: domestication of information,
RSA
Journal, April, 1997, pp 41-53.
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