Lecture 19 - Social, Ethical, and Legal Issues

Tech trends that are impacting society today

• storage costs decreasing

• computer power increases

• big data techniques

• growth of internet

• growth of mobile phone usage

5 areas of ethical concern

1. personal information rights and and obligations

2. digital property rights

3. data and system quality

4. accountability, liability and control

5. quality of life

Ethical principle: golden rule

treating others the way you would want to be treated (in a digital space)

Kant’s categorical imperative

if an action isn’t right for everyone, then it isn’t for anyone

Descartes’ rule of change

if an action can’t be repeated, then it shouldn’t be taken at all

Utilitarian principle

take action that is the highest value for all concerned

Risk aversion principles

take action that don’t have a high cost of failure

According to PIPEDA, what is considered personal information

• Demographics

• internet

• physical information/characteristics

• financial information

How is personal information (PI) protected in Canada only

• Accountability

• consent

• limiting use

• safeguards

• individual access

PIPEDA principles for gathering of PI

• identifying purposes: reason for collection should be identifiable

• limiting collection: only gathering what’s necessary

• accuracy: info should be accurate

• openness: privacy policy should be clearly identifiable

• resources: providing a complaint procedure

cookies

activity tracking on an independent website

Third party cookies

tracking activity across many websites, not just its own

web beacons

ads of items you’ve been browsing

spyware

software that gathers info without users’ knowledge