Invasion Of Privacy Analysis

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I would like to hone in on the importance of privacy, property, and accessibility in issues of the information era as these are very important when it comes to handling data. According to Mason, most ethical issues that arise from this era arise from the misuse these three properties. When looking at the privacy issue, it is important to answer questions like “What information about one's self or one's associations must a person reveal to others, under what conditions and with what safeguards? What things can people keep to themselves and not be forced to reveal to others? (Mason).” Property of information causes issues in situations where it is uncertain who has ownership of the rights to the data and on which mediums it is distributed. Very …show more content…
It helps them realize what the people want so they can easily make more fitting policies. Invasion of privacy does not seem to concern the policy makers as they often collect information without user consent. An example of this occurred in Florida at a Community college where they monitored “the usage of the toilets, mirrors, sinks and other facilities and recorded them on a form (Mason).” Students and faculty were unhappy with this study since they felt their privacy was being invaded. However, the state officials argued “that the study would provide valuable information for policy making” and “that the value of the information to the administrators was greater than any possible indignities suffered by the students and others (Mason).” The statements made by the state seem to be defended by Utilitarian ethics. They believed it was right to invade the privacy of some to create a greater good. This greater good being figuring out if the taxpayers money was being used efficiently. In this scenario, the utilitarian point of view is not the most ethical path as this caused the invasion of privacy for particular …show more content…
They found out that many employees had fines, unpaid fees and also discovered files on alcohol and drug abuse. This information was unnecessarily retrieved and was leaked to the public. This in turn probably caused the public to frown upon these employees and ruined many personal relationships. In addition, it may have caused their employers to possibly rethink having them as employees. It was highly unethical for those programmers to retrieve and merge that information because they invaded those employees’ lives and caused a negative impact on them. “Good computer men know that one of the most practical of our present safeguards of privacy is the fragmented nature of present information (Mason).” It is imperative that information stay scattered over several databases in order to protect individual’s personal