Chapter 14- Ethical, Legal & Social Issues

The set of principles about what is right and wrong that individuals use to make choices to guide their decisions.

Ethics

Principles or standards of right and wrong behavior that govern an individual’s or society’s beliefs, values, and actions.

Morals

A system of rules that tells us what we may and may not do.

Law

A framework for evaluating a company’s ethical business practices.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG)

A company’s commitment to operate in a way that benefits society and the environment, alongside making profits.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR)

A clear and concise description of an issue that needs to be addressed.

Problem statement

A statement of the principles and core values that an organization wants to develop in its leaders and members.

professional code of ethics

A term for a set of guidelines that govern the collection and use of personal data.

fair information practices

A data privacy and protection framework that applies to all companies that process the personal data of EU citizens, regardless of where the processing takes place, and even when EU citizens are outside of EU borders.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

A federal law that regulates the operations of credit-reporting bureaus, including how they collect, store, and use credit information.

Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)

An act that protects the records of financial institution customers from unauthorized scrutiny by the federal government.

Right to Financial Privacy Act (RFPA)

A federal law that allows consumers to request and obtain a free credit report once each year from each of the three primary consumer credit reporting companies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion).

Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA)

A federal law that requires healthcare organizations to employ standardized electronic transactions, codes, and identifiers to enable them to fully digitize medical records, thus making it possible to electronically exchange medical data.

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

A federal law that includes strong privacy provisions for electronic health records (EHRs).

Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH)

A federal law that assigns certain rights to parents regarding their children’s educational records.

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

A federal law stating that any website that caters to children must offer comprehensive privacy policies, notify parents or guardians about its data collection practices, and receive parental consent before collecting any personal information from children under 13 years of age.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

The practice of companies profiting from the collection and processing of our personal data collected from online activities.

surveillance capitalism

A company that creates profiles on people based on aggregated data from multiple sources.

Data brokers

The legal concept that an individual has a legitimate expectation that their personal information, communications, and activities will remain private and secure from unwarranted intrusion or surveillance by others, including the government.

reasonable expectation of privacy

A set of seven core principles based on actively protecting customer data in the original design of an information system.

Proactive not reactive

Privacy as the default setting

Privacy embedded into design

Full functionality

End-to-end security

Visibility and transparency

Respect for user privacy

Privacy by Design

The expression of opinions by people who do not reveal their identity.

Anonymous expression

is the term for submitting a false report of a crime to emergency services to cause police to harass an innocent victim

Swatting

The control or suppression of the publishing or accessing of information on the Internet.

Internet censorship

An act that provides immunity to an internet service provider (ISP) that publishes user-generated content, provided its actions do not rise to the level of a content provider.

Section 230 of the CDA Communications Decency Act

Software that can be used to block access to certain websites that contain material deemed inappropriate or offensive.

internet filter

The making of either an oral or a written statement of alleged fact that is false and that harms another person.

defamation

Persistent or malicious harassment aimed at a specific person because of their membership in a protected class.

hate speech

A false story that is presented as being factually accurate and appears to be news.

Fake news

A system that performs reliably and efficiently, meets their users’ needs, maintains high security, is easily maintainable and extensible, handles increasing workloads, and is compliant with appropriate laws and regulations.

High-quality information systems

Any error that, if not removed, could cause a software system to fail to meet its users’ needs or open a door for a cyberattack.

software defect

A system whose failure may cause human injury or death.

safety-critical system

A person who reports illegal, unethical, or unsafe behavior within an organization, typically by reporting the wrongdoing to a legal or regulatory authority or the media.

whistleblower

was aimed at protecting children from p0rnography. imposed $250,000 fines and prison terms of up to two years for the transmission of “indecent” material over the internet. However, parts of this were declared unconstitutional due to broad and vague language.

Communications Decency Act (CDA)

Deliver value to customers.

Invest in employees.

Deal fairly and ethically with suppliers.

Support the communities in which they work.

Generate long-term value for shareholders.

Together these five commitments create BLAK, a synergistic environment in which all stakeholders benefit. This is a self-reinforcing, positive feedback loop that brings value to everyone involved

virtuous cycle