Ethics and the Electronic Society

Florence Mason
F. Mason & Associates

There is growing attention to the question of what constitutes appropriate ethical conduct for information professionals. This is sparked by the awareness that information and information systems create significant personal and societal benefits as well as raise new social issues. Censorship, conflict of interest, the individual's right to privacy, and equality of access to information illustrate a few of these current areas of concern.

Who Owns Information?

As the information sector diversifies, the distinctions among who is author, who is publisher, and who owns information are blurring. Societal expectations about the right to enjoy the intellectual efforts of others and the right to distribute one's own intellectual products are changing. The nature of ownership, patents, copyrights, and trademarks and the rights they convey are being discussed, and in some cases, redefined.

The Power of, or Control of, the Individual in the Information Age?

Who controls information? How are information professionals to act toward proposals to impose "paternalistic censorship" which aims to restrict access "for the sake of the public." Prodigy (commercial electronic utility) users recently experienced an exercise of this power when Prodigy "owners" attempted to control electronic mail message content by enforcing arbitrary rules and denying system access to those who would not conform to these rules. This case raises complex questions about who owns the communication medium and what are the rights of users as opposed to those of owners?

Wizard or Pauper?

Access to information defines access to resources and can enhance social and economic status. Information is becoming more important for economic survival in both a personal and corporate sense. What responsibility do information professionals have in helping or preventing the creation of a divided society of information rich and poor? Is it the responsibility of the information professional or is it society's role to provide universal access to information and information systems? In the case of costly information, will society have responsibility to subsidize access?

Your Right to Privacy as Contrasted To My Right to Access?

The right to privacy and personal liberty on the part of the individual is often in opposition to the right of the public or an individual to know and to find out certain information. Who decides how personal information is to be made available and used in our society? What is private information and how is it to be safeguarded? The ease of obtaining personal data reduces the privacy safety zone of the individual. Large personal information data banks simplify the selling, aggregating, and reshaping of personal information in many new forms unanticipated by the person who originally provided the information. Commercial practices continually challenge the definition of what is to be considered "private" information. Personal data is bought, sold, stolen, altered, exchanged or bartered, compared, and aggregated into comprehensive personal data profiles of immense interest to business and marketing concerns. In February 1992, the Federal Government instituted a ten state crackdown on individuals in the business of selling black market data from supposedly "secure" sources such as the Social Security Administration and the FBI (Behar, 1992). With the value of information increasing at the same time that it is easier to collect, use, and share, there could be a general societal backlash against all uses of personal information -- by the government, by marketers, by insurance companies, etc.

On the other hand, how public should "public" information be, and what obligations does the information professional have to observe with regard to this issue? Government policies on publishing and Freedom of Information Act policies appear to restrict access with considerable resulting debate over how to provide adequate access to public information.

Creating New Information Highways or "Trashing the Commons"?

For at least the past two decades the national networks have been carefully tended "common ground" shared by researchers, scientists, and other users. As the "network of the people" grows, use and misuse of this "cyberspace" raises issues of user etiquette, norms, access, and legal rights. The workspaces of the national networks are increasingly vulnerable to the invasion of hackers and others with less than positive motives. New technological applications and users with differing values are creating a moral vacuum in which many rules have yet to be defined (Johnson, 1989). Will hacking, illegal break-ins, and flaming close down or limit formerly open access pathways?

Man or Monster? The Mary Shelley Problem

Before long, information professionals may face questions already being raised in science and technology with the acceptance of in-vitro fertilization and genetic engineering. What is the appropriate role of computer professionals in determining how their work is used? Should they consider the societal implications of their work? (Rosenberg, 1991)

For instance in the not-too-distant future, could computer and information professionals collaborate to create a robot clone of a human being? Let's suppose they do and this robot does bad things and invades property or threatens life. What is the responsibility of the designers and the programmers for creation of this Frankenstein's monster?

Time for A New Ethical Code?

Information professionals have adopted various statements to guide the professional behavior. Some of the more well known are the Code of Professional Conduct of the Association for Computing Machinery, the Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct adopted by the Data Processing Management Association, and the Librarian's Code of Ethics which was first adopted in 1938 and then updated in 1975 and 1981. It now appears the Librarian's Code is about to be updated again. (Finks, 1991)

Ethics is concerned with personal conduct and ethical behavior that defines a high standard of personal responsibility. Acting ethically means making decisions based on the principles of responsiveness, fairness, efficiency, expertise, service, and security. Ethical reasoning should make the professional alert to dilemmas hidden in daily routines and practices that are unfair or compromise privacy or intellectual freedom. Ethical principles, however, are not rules, they are guidelines which shape practice.

Advances in computer and data communications technology and their use are changing the information professional's role. Old rules don't necessarily apply and new rules have not yet been formulated or are not yet generally accepted. The pervasiveness of information technology strengthens the need for ethical behavior by information professionals. The sphere of the professional influence broadens daily. Many information professionals already have a broad scope of responsibility for varied types of technologies. A librarian in a medium size town might find her or him self managing an institution, a shared online network, a telecommunications system, a local area network, commercial databases, CD-ROM products, and a cluster of software products. Each of these systems and products have license, copyright, patent, and other rights and duties which define their use.

Societal expectation of accountability on the part of information professionals for the quality of the product they provide is increasing. Are information professionals liable for a security breech to an automated system or in identifying erroneous information? Unthinkable only a few years ago, the concept of "information malpractice" is being discussed in the literature. (Bloombecker, 1989) In a recent case, a Marine Corps librarian was dismissed after the crash of an A-4 attack jet because he failed to update the maintenance manual for the jet. (Hotline, 1990)

One of the central ideas of information resource management is that information professionals must safeguard information in their care. Information is a form of property and must be protected. The problems of copyright violations, software piracy, electronic harassment, break-ins to data systems, and computer viruses involve issues of security to property and the exercise of appropriate professional responsibility.

Information professionals are increasingly responsible for data accuracy and service quality. Electronic media provides new means for publishing information and accessing information. Information professionals are often providing information direct from source where it was created. Formerly, librarians accessed packages of information which had already passed through a quality assessment process such as acceptance in a refereed journal. The profusion and diversity of sources of information further complicates and confuses this issue.

There is an escalating potential for misuse of information and electronic technology. Data banks and the data stored in them are value-free; the intent of the user can produce negative or positive consequences. For example, in Guatemala, card registration from libraries was used for create assassination lists of the county's intelligentsia. In a different context, is it ethical for professional managers to read employees electronic mail in order to insure the employees are not using the system for personal use?

The economic nature of information is becoming a major ethical issue as well. Information can be used to create or deny wealth. Likewise, unfair use of information can be illegal and create enormous wealth. The recent inside trader cases illustrate this point. The question of how information is distributed and who get access to information involve basic ethical questions of fairness and equity.

Defining Ethics

One aspect of professional groups is that they espouse some form of ethics and define standards of ethical conduct. Adherence to a code of ethics is basic to the nature of being a professional. The work of information professionals, like accountants, psychologists, and social workers, involves making judgments which are unique, uncertain, equivocal, and have the potential of value conflict. In addition, information professionals draw upon theoretical knowledge and their training in procedures and methods in order to exercise control over a domain known as library and information science.

Key ethical principles vary little across different professions. Codes of ethics usually provide guidance on: responsible professional behavior, competence in execution of duties, adherence to moral and legal standards, standards for making public statements, preservation of confidentiality, interest in welfare of the customer, and the development and maintenance of professional knowledge. Of these, concern for the welfare of the client is paramount. Ethical behavior is concerned with the difference between helping someone versus not hurting someone. This principle is captured by the code of ethics of medicine which states, "First, do no harm."

Codes of ethics and ethical prescriptions also provide guidelines on how professionals relate to others. Ethical guidelines discuss relationships between the professional and his or her colleagues, clients, institutions, and society.

Ethical Responsibilities of Information Professionals

What are important ethics and ethical responsibilities for information professionals? How much privacy is an individual entitled to? Are information professionals responsible for providing accurate (as opposed to inaccurate) information? Do information professionals have responsibility to safeguard data and information? Do information professionals have a responsibility for their information creations, good or bad?

In trying to answer some of these questions, the following ethical principles are proposed to guide effective professional behavior.

Information professionals must exercise fiduciary responsibility. They are the trustees of information. The information professional must recognize that information is property and must be safeguarded appropriately. Information professionals must safeguard data and protect this resource when it is in his or her care. This fiduciary relationship extends to protecting against illegal software copying, to taking precautions to block unauthorized access to proprietary databases, and to vigilance against fire, theft, and virus attacks.

Information professionals must guard against maleficence. The ethical principle expressed here is to recognize the primacy of the welfare of the client, the "first do no harm" concept.

The information professional has a responsibility to provide altruistic service, to protect the welfare and interest of his or her clients. This principle many even extend to a generalized client, in asking what are the ethical principles that must be adhered to insure fairness to my clientele?

Information professional should provide beneficence. The information professional has responsibility to balance needs of different groups. The ethical principle is to uphold benefits for one group while not depriving or being unfair to another. In general, the ethical manager's actions should improve life for clients, employees, and the community.

Information professionals must observe the ethical principle of justice which considers how to distribute goods and services fairly. Under conditions of scarcity, it is an important professional responsibility to determine if it is more important to provide certain types of information than others. Also, are some users more important than others in their needs for information?

Information professionals must exercise independence and objectivity. Professionals must guard against improper influence on their professional judgments by vendors. The ethically responsible position for the professional information manager is to take actions and make decisions based upon the merits of the situation. The difficulty is avoiding conflict of interest and other situations where conflict of interest may be hidden or less visible.

The information professional must exhibit professionalism in knowledge and demeanor. The professional has a responsibility to master the complex body of knowledge which comprises his or her domain of practice. This is particularly challenging for information professionals who practice in a rapidly developing and evolving technical and commercial realm.

Information professionals must exercise moral judgment. In the case of the "bad" robot creation, adhering to a code of professional ethics is only a part of the answer. Professional ethics are intended to guide the conduct of the professional with regard to the client and in certain decision making situations. There are other ethical and moral principles which also apply. The case can be made that not only must the individual act in a professional manner in given circumstances but they must also be moral in their behavior. Creating a robot may have two orders of effects. The first or primary effect may only be a "technology substitution" problem. Use of robots could throw people out of work and deny them a means of livelihood. A second and more serious effect is the changes that the robot might bring to social structure overall, both in terms of values and to the basic fabric of society. Moral philosophy attempts to deal with this second order of effect. Moral philosophy extends our responsibility beyond professional conduct. In this realm, the creation of a dangerous robot is a morally repulsive act, and therefore it is not acceptable morally and ethically.

Conclusion

Codes of ethics define guidelines for making choices and considering the consequences of those choices. The rapid change in the information environment suggests that a new and expanded code of ethics is needed to guide professional decisions and values in practice. A new code should consider the way in which professional work is done and give guidance as regarding what kinds of action are right and wrong. Most importantly, the code should provide guidelines for justice, beneficence, non-malefience, independence, objectivity, and professionalism.

References

Richard Behar, "Psst, Secrets for Sale," Time 139(8):42 (February 24, 1992).

J. D. Bloombecker, "Malpractice in IS?," Datamation 35(20):85-86 (October 15, 1989).

"Disturbing Developments," Library Hotline 9(37):1 (September 17, 1990).

Lee W. Finks, "Librarianship needs a new code of professional ethics," American Libraries 22(1):84-92 (January 1991).

Deborah G. Johnson, "The Public-Private Status of Transactions in Computer Networks," The Information Web: Ethical and Social Implications of Computer Networking. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989).

Ronni Rosenberg, "Mixed Signals About Social Responsibility," Communications of the ACM 34(8):146 (August 1991).

Florence (aka Foxie) Mason, F. Mason & Associates, Dallas, Texas, is a consultant for long range planning for libraries. She is adjunct professor for the University of North Texas School of Library and Information Studies and is also adjunct for the Emporia State University School of Library and Information Management.

72550.2710@compuserve.com