Technology has a number of social and ethical implications that cause debate and concern. One specific issue is privacy. Information technology has opened up society and decreased privacy. This lesson will explore a number of privacy issues that are of concern, including electronic surveillance, availability of personal information, cookies and spyware, and workplace monitoring.
We are currently living in the so-called information age which can be described as an era were economic activities are mainly information based (an age of informationalization). This is due to the development and use of technology. The main characteristics of this era can be summarized as a rise in the number of knowledge workers, a world that has become more open - in the sense of communication (global village/Gutenberg galaxy) and internationalization (trans-border flow of data).
This paradigm shift brings new ethical and juridical problems which are mainly related to issues such as the right of access to information, the right of privacy which is threatened by the emphasis on the free flow of information, and the protection of the economic interest of the owners of intellectual property.
The ethical actions of a person can be described in general terms as those actions which are performed within the criterium of what is regarded as good. It relates thus to the question of what is good or bad in terms of human actions. According to Spinello (1995, p. 14) the purpose of ethics is to help us behave honorably and attain those basic goods that make us more fully human.
Privacy can be defined as an individual condition of life characterized by exclusion from publicity. The concept follows from the right to be left alone. Shank states that such a perception of privacy set the course for passing of privacy laws in the United States for the ninety years that followed. As such privacy could be regarded as a natural right which provides the foundation for the legal right. The right to privacy is therefore protected under private law.
The legal right to privacy is constitutionally protected in most democratic societies. This constitutional right is expressed in a variety of legislative forms. Examples include the Privacy Act (1974) in the USA, the proposed Open Democracy Act in South Africa (1996) and the Data Protection Act in England. During 1994 Australia also accepted a Privacy Charter containing 18 privacy principles which describe the right of a citizen concerning personal privacy as effected by handling of information by the state . The Organization for Economic and Coordination and Development (OECD) also accepted in 1980 the Guidelines for the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flow of Personal Data.
Privacy is an important right because it is a necessary condition for other rights such as freedom and personal autonomy. There is thus a relationship between privacy, freedom and human dignity. Respecting a person's privacy is to acknowledge such a person's right to freedom and to recognize that individual as an autonomous human being.
The duty to respect a person's privacy is furthermore a prima facie duty. In other words, it is not an absolute duty that does not allow for exceptions. Two examples can be given. Firstly, the police may violate a criminal's privacy by spying or by seizing personal documents. A government also has the right to gather private and personal information from its citizens with the aim of ensuring order and harmony in society (Ware, 1993:205). The right to privacy (as an expression of individual freedom) is thus confined by social responsibility.
Although technology has a major impact on the gathering, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information its main ethical impact relates to accessibility/inaccessibility and the manipulation of information. It creates the possibility of wider as well as simultaneous access to information. By implication, it becomes easier to access a person's private information by more people. On the other hand, a person can be excluded from necessary information in electronic format by means of a variety of security measures such as passwords.
The technological manipulation of information refers, among others, to the integration of information (merging of documents), the repackaging thereof (translations and the integration of textual and graphical formats) and the possible altering of information (changing of photographic images) by electronic means.
The use of technology in the processing of information can therefore not be seen as ethically neutral. Christians refers to the use of technology as a value laden process. Kluge even comments that technology has changed the ontological status of a document with accompanying ethical implications. By this he specifically refers to the manipulation of information by means of technology.
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