Information Ethics

Access to Information

Personal Information –

Do you have a right to know what information is collected about you?

Do you have the right to correct it?

What if that information is the private property of a database company?

What if the information is in a government database?

Credit laws require that you be given free access to your credit history and the right to update/correct information contained there. You have no right to sue for damages if the information was added incorrectly. You may have rights to sue if the information was added maliciously.

The Freedom of Information Act allows you to see some kinds of government information about you, but may exclude criminal investigations (the Monfils case) and has been modified by the Patriot Act.

Personal access –

Do all citizens have the right to internet access to check web sites?

Access limits can occur from skill, location, and income. Public librarians have taken a professional mission to address this problem, but there is no legal requirement that they do so. In fact, they are being sued by various conservative groups for giving too much access, especially to sites that may be pornographic. And, after the use of libraries by the September 11 killers, libraries are under pressure to track patron usage.

Censorship of the Internet

• Should the government be able to ban sexist or racist web sites?
• Yes, In Germany, no in the US unless the “hate speech” is personal, in which case it falls under slander and libel laws.
• Should the government ban web sites that defraud the public?
• We don’t have prior restraint, but interstate commerce protections exist.
• Should colleges ban web sites that sell term papers?
• The response has been to just punish students who are caught, just as in any other plagiarism situation. And there has been a drop in the term papers required.
• Should libraries ban pornographic web sites?
• They are being urged to ban them for all. Other laws apply to child-sex and indecency standards.
• Should the government ban web sites that incite violence? (Miss World)
• Incitement to riot is a crime, but few cases of internet incitement have occurred so far.
• Should the government ban web sites that explain how to build bombs?
• This might be illegal under the right to keep and bare arms. Besides what if the web sites were available in other countries?
• Should the government ban the web sites of opposition parties?
• This is routinely done in other countries. The government may discourage activity by tracking emails, by taxing the “publication” facilities of opponents, by arrest of opponents, and the murder of opponents. Several US companies have recently made significant sums by selling censorship technology to China (Nortel, Cisco, Yahoo).

Intellectual Property

Should you be able to make a free copy of anything you find on the Internet?

What if you make a few changes to the music/pictures/films you find on the Internet and resell them?

Can you legally make copies of songs and sell them?

IPR is based on the assumption that people should be allowed property, and that individual effort should be rewarded. Rewards take the form of prestige and cash. It is assumed that without such rewards there would be no creative activity, or that it would be dramatically reduced (historical efforts at ending IPR usually show its necessity)

Harm can come in many forms:

Take someone’s idea/digital product and sell it (China)

Take someone’s idea/digital product and take credit for it (plagiarism)

Take someone’s idea/digital product and use it without payment

Each of these is a form of theft and has long been illegal. It can also be economically injurious as in the situation software houses in China face when they try to compete with “free” MicroSoft products.

Privacy

What is privacy? Thoughts, relationships, actions, location, commercial processes.

Personal data –

• What can businesses store about you?
• Ideal - Only what is necessary and only as long as it is required.
• How can businesses protect you?
• Purge purchase/loan records as soon as possible. E.g. library loans – which books do you read?
• Is there a legal requirement that records be purged?
• No.
• Can my personal information be sold?
• Yes. That is how mailing lists get created.

Employment surveillance

Can you legally be fired for sending personal email from a company computer?

Current technology allows employers to read employee email, monitor web sites visited, count key strokes or otherwise monitor performance.

All of these are legal and are justified on the basis that the employer owns the equipment and is paying for the employee’s time.