Awareness About the Ethical Usage of Information Technology
Establishing Ethical Standards for Responsible Technology Use in Modern Organizations
Development of a Code of Ethics Associated with Ethical Issues in Information Technology
With the rapid pace at which Information Technology is growing and the amount of information being disclosed through the use of Information Technology, it is important to educate users and prepare students to understand the perspective of ethical usage. Over the last 25 years, technology has greatly expanded, affecting business, education, and society.
Information Technology is now being used in almost every department, unlike in the days when it was limited to areas such as programming, data processing, server administration, and phone services. It is now extensively used in every department to process work that needs to be completed (Payne & Landry, 2006).
A good example of the use of ethical considerations in Information Technology is demonstrated by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 in the United States. This Act was brought into effect to improve corporate governance and ethical business practices through laws addressing areas such as increased accountability and strengthened financial controls (Mingers & Walsham, 2010).
The ethical use of Information Technology needs to be addressed, particularly in areas such as how technology is used to deprive people of their privacy, how technological automation tends to reduce jobs and, consequently, lead to unemployment, and how organizational management data and its corresponding systems are sometimes used to obtain personal gain.
Having considered the level of information being disclosed through the platform of Information Technology, it is of great significance to develop ethical employees. Morality needs to be taught from time to time, and higher levels of education need to be undertaken, especially in business schools, to prepare students for the ethical use of Information Technology.
There are five major ethical issues relating to Information Technology, including fraud, the right to privacy for consumers, social responsibility, security, and trade restrictions. There is a need to control the rapid growth and widespread use of Information Technology, which leads to the need for the development of codes of ethics for Information Technology (Brooks, 2010; Ramey, 2010).
You can study more about the ethical challenges in the use of Information Technology and ways to develop individual responsibility to combat these challenges. Please visit the referenced article below and learn more about ways to address ethical issues on the Use of Technology website.
Reference
Ramey, K. (2010). 5 Ethical Challenges of Information Technology. Techucation, November 5, 2012. Retrieved May 2016 from http://www.useoftechnology.com/5-ethical-challenges-information-technology.
