Ethical Issues in DI

Ethical relates to moral principles of right and wrong. Diverse individuals have different perspectives on topics, situations and life therefore they use their own knowledge, experience and value to judge whether it is ethical or unethical. Ethics is involved in majority of disciples of study e.g. medical, business, engineering, etc. Although, there are not ethical issues involving specifically in Digital Identity, it would be similar to computing ethics.

Introduction

Anonymity Monitoring Invading user's privacy Users consent Copyright information Misusing data Difference between real and Digital Identity Unable to control our own data

Overview

Monitoring people does have some significance advantages i.e. public safety, national security, searchable databases, law enforcement and prevent crimes. However, it is still invading on someone’s privacy, violating individual rights, misusing the information, committing an immoral act and also used for cynical reasons i.e. for personal gain, business advantage and committing crimes. It means individual’s privacy is not respected, private, confidential, secure and controlled. Hence, ethical issues arises.

Invasion of privacy

Anonymity can be a blessing to protect, secure privacy and freedom of expression. Nevertheless, anonymity also has benefits to cybercriminals; as it is easier to monitor, hack, track and store data of an individual without their permission. One should respect other’s privacy but to what extent should this be taken in account for? How should one know, if a person’s decision to remain anonymous is justifiable? It is not ethically acceptable for a person to hide their true identity, surf the internet possibly to commit crimes or deceive people to gain access to the required information.

Anonymity

How our digital avatar varies comparing to our real life can be considered unethical. i.e. using our own photos, information, etc but behaving in certain ways that we would not in real life. It can be measured as deceiving other people and somehow relates to anonymity. while some people may have suitable reason, someone might take advantage of it to mislead other individuals. However, it varies on each individuals opinion.

Online behaviour

Cookies, web bugs, spyware, internet protocol (IP), loyalty cards and CCTV are being used to monitor, track and store personal information, activities and users behaviour online. The collected data is mainly utilized for market analysis, direct marketing or advertisement. What’s ethical and unethical about monitoring depends on the situation. I.e. hacking criminals account or monitoring criminals can be understandable but invading users privacy for business is not ethical.

Monitoring

Using cookies to monitor users is common usually for a person’s convenience. Although, it is now illegal to use cookies without visitors permission, there are still thousands of website who uses cookies without visitors authorization. Not only it is illegal, it is also morally wrong to track people without their permission. Every website should follow the rule as part of legal requirement, which would also be more ethical as users would be aware of cookies procedure in the website.

Users consent

People collect, store and process our data for various purpose, misusingdata involves breaching the law “Data Protection Act” and theprinciples are as follow: Data should be used fairly and lawfully Data should be used for limited, specifically stated purposes Data should be used in a way that is adequate, relevant and not

excessive Data should be accurate Data should not be kept longer than is absolutely necessary Data should be handled according to people’s data protection rights Data should be kept safe and secure Data should not be transferred outside the UK without adequate

protectionNo one should misuse our data legally and ethically i.e. selling the data

without our knowledge, using it for other reasons than specified, etc.

Misusing data

Copyright is about the exclusive legal right given to the authors or creators for their work, “original works of authorship,”. Only the author can:

• Reproduce the work in copies or sound recordings.• Make derivative works based upon the original.• Distribute copies or sound recordings of the original to the

public by sales, rentals, leasing, lending or licensing.• Perform the original publicly; and that would include the use of

digital audio.• Display the original publicly.This is also illegal and not morally right to use copyrightedinformation without their permission.

Copyright information

Once we have posted any information about ourselves i.e. status updates, messages, pictures, videos or any other sensitive data. We do not have control over it i.e. unless these information is kept private, other may access the information easily and use it accordingly. Not only that, we don’t have control over what other publish about us, for various reasons i.e. for safety and security reasons this is not right.

Control of our own data

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References