Internet of Things and Ethics

1. The Internet of Things, as it’s called, is also lacking a critical ethical framework, argues Francine Berman, a computer-science professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a longtime expert on computer infrastructure.

2. The Australian Computer Society (ACS) Code of Ethics are part of the ACS Constitution. ACS members are expected to uphold and advance the honour, dignity and effectiveness of being a professional. Critique the Australian Computer Society Code of Ethics using suitable examples.

3. Utilitarians stress the “social utility” or social usefulness of particular actions and policies by focusing on the consequences that result from those actions and policies. (Tavani, 2014) Critique the concepts of Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism using suitable examples.

Internet was established long back in 1969. At the beginning there were only few sites tht operated it but in present days the internet interconnects us with several of networks. Internet went under various phases which each time affected the society and the culture of business in a more compact way that the previous one. In the present world the internet of things is present in almost each of the information sharing and or in the system uses. The internet of things is an emerging global internet based technical architecture. With the development of communication technologies, fast development of wireless sensor networks, Internet of Things opens various ethics that can be concerned with the uses of internet of things.

The internet of things is such influencing and advanced role player in the present lives that it records the necessary information which might have been deleted by the user to use it for the information while transforming to generate revenues. For example, the searches of users in Google are saved even after the user deletes it. This saved data are later on sorted on the basis of the likes and dislikes to further show options that could suggest options for the company to make revenue. This way the internet of things hampers the ethics of “respecting the privacy of users” and “confidentiality” (Wortmann & Flüchter, 2015).

The required security and privacy measures that evolve around the Internet of Things are the attribution to objects that the user may not be familiar with. For example, wireless HART a communication technology provides with security and robustness but lacks in exchanging and information and making use of same with other communication technologies. The concerns can be described as avoiding the points of failure and adjust the forks of the failures in the system. Then data authentication is to be ensured which will make the system secured by the authenticating the retrieved address and object information. An implementation regarding the information providers to access control on the provided data (Jing et al., 2014). One of the significant privacy measures is to be taken to limit the use of the of the lookup system of the related customer of a specific information provider. It will also add up to make the inference hard to conduct.

Australian Computer Society Code of Ethics

Interne t of things is always researched and seen as making the most benefit to the society. However, it is quiet difficult to maintain the ethical requirement. The internet of things can make the user attracted to it and there would be no clear way to use the artifacts. It could be difficult and can have varied perspectives between the people who grew with technology and the people born before introduction of technology (Warren & Burmeister,2017). The difficulty in identification can be another significant issue that can impact the culture of the society and business. The autonomous and predictable behavior where the interconnected objects might hinder in human events can lead to emerging behaviors without the users understanding.

Australian Computer Society (ACS) code of ethics is a part of the ACS constitution.  The Australian Computer Society is the professional information for Australia’s information nd communication technology. All the members of ACS should uphold the ACS code of ethics and code of professional conduct. The code of professional conduct considers six types of ethical values such as the primacy of the Public Interest, the enhancement of quality of life, honesty, competence, professional development and professionalism.

It states that precedence over personal, private and sectional interests is taken by the public interest. The work is considered to be taken with the law and the way the work is completed by ACS members requires to be done in an ethical way. The required understanding of the values and the interest is taken into consideration while executing the code of conducts (Al-Saggaf, Burmeister & Weckert, 2015). For example, Amazon website customers are adhered to privacy of the personal data, the product being purchased and the price being paid, and along with also getting the delivery of the goods. Safeguarding the confidential and the privacy of the information is ensuring public interest.

The enhancement of the quality of life positively affects the society and indirectly through the system. Ensuring web application schemes of the user aligns with the intention of the system. The feedback taken and the necessary required options of the stakeholders are an important factor rides the operations of the organization. Data mining also negatively impacts the society for which it is necessary to follow the ethical codes of ACS. Holding public trust is an important code which allows the users to feel secure in terms of privacy. It can offered with the help of users transparency and insights on the process of using guide. Still there are many users that do not prefer reading this terms and conditions (Mill, 2016). In the last, by ACS code of ethics and adhering of the laws the faith can be reserved and the respect of ICT industry will be implemented. It will lead to avoid further damage to the reputation of ICT.

Utilitarianism

Recognition of information and communication technology (ICT) in Australia is not produced according to the ethical vacuum in systems only instead the values of stakeholders are also equally important. Stakeholders can be including the customers, suppliers, employees, vendors and contractors, and all other who are related to delivery with the product. It raises the need of addressing the factor and properly implementing the professional codes (Giaffreda et al., 2015).  For addressing the issues and to avoid continue affectivity of the code reviews, procedural guidelines are required. Changes to code of ethics include expanding sense of professional responsibility and behavior with respect to the technological advances.  Therefore, for successful development and implementation suitable codes are necessary. It also assesses the promotion of assessing the ethics of new technologies. ICT requires regular updates and changes deliberately with accordance with the reviews of the codes. This also claims professional members to be efficient to regulate ACS and the changes in the industry.

Utilitarianism considers an independent ethical portion in the fundamental utilitarian’s ideas.  It is a philosophical representation of theory of morality which shows the way one should act within the tradition. The decision making on the basis of calculation of consequences is the main aim of utilitarianism. Both the utilitarian’s theories are aimed at evaluating actions that give possible results (Vallentyne, 2014).

Act utilitarianism is one of the theories of ethics that states that the act of a person is morally right if it results into a best possible outcome related to the specific situation. It directly applies the principle of individual actions. For example, eating the whole chocolate alone will result to more happiness instead sharing the chocolate with others and eat altogether is more ethical according to Act utilitarianism. In simple it believes in making the best decision that will give net utility outcome.

The significant advantage that rule utilinatiarism rides over Act utilitaniarism as an ethical theory recognizes to the moral and social individual rights and personal objections. Rule utilinarism can be compeletely recognized on the basis of moral ethics which will affect the social-utility maximization.

Rule utilitarianism gives stress on the fact that actions are to be taken in accordance with the moral rules. The moral rule has to be justified to a justified moral rule. Hence, a moral rule is justified when the moral code creates more utility as compared to other rules. For example, while devising a code for the drivers specific rules can be adapted such as “do not drink and drive” instead of “drive safely” as in Act utilitarianism. It applies the utilitarian principle directly with refereeing to rules and then evaluates individual actions (Barrow, 2015).

Both the utilitarianism was in arguments since ever. It had always been in arguments that Act utilitarianism maximizes the utility because it focuses more on the overall utility to bring out the utility of each individual action that is performed whereas in Rule utilitarianism it is stated that it focuses more on to produce a beneficial results considering ethical rules instead of focusing on the individual actions. Hence, in various situations both the utilitarianism cannot be adapted mutually instead to choose one the other utilitarianism has to be rejected (Nichols et al., 2016). Is can be stated that the Act utilitarianism is open to various criticisms which are completely neglected by rule utilitarianism, such as Act utilitarianism supports wrong action being accepted while decision making whereas Rule utilitarianism completely is not open to this objection.

Both the theories together form various arguments on how the decision making is to be done referring to the moral judgments. As Act utilitarianism concentrates more on individual context and the rule utilitarianism stresses more on the features of moral ethics. However, both the perspectives agree that the main point is to determine the wrong and right relation between the decisions that need to be made and the impacts that it can have on the level of well being.

Reference

Al-Saggaf, Y., Burmeister, O., & Weckert, J. (2015). Reasons behind unethical behaviour in the Australian ICT workplace: An empirical investigation. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, 13(3/4), 235-255.

Barrow, R. (2015). Utilitarianism: A contemporary statement. Routledge.

Giaffreda, R., Vieriu, R. L., Pasher, E., Bendersky, G., Jara, A. J., Rodrigues, J. J., … & Mandler, B. (2015). Internet of Things.

Jing, Q., Vasilakos, A. V., Wan, J., Lu, J., & Qiu, D. (2014). Security of the Internet of Things: perspectives and challenges. Wireless Networks, 20(8), 2481-2501.

Mill, J. S. (2016). Utilitarianism. In Seven Masterpieces of Philosophy (pp. 337-383). Routledge.

Nichols, S., Kumar, S., Lopez, T., Ayars, A., & Chan, H. Y. (2016). Rational learners and moral rules. Mind & Language, 31(5), 530-554.

Vallentyne, P. (2014). Robert Nozick: Anarchy, State, and Utopia. In Central Works of Philosophy v5 (pp. 108-125). Routledge. ===utilitaniarism

Warren, M., & Burmeister, O. K. (2017). Research on Applied Ethics involving emerging ICT technologies. Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 21.

Wortmann, F., & Flüchter, K. (2015). Internet of things. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 57(3), 221-224.