Ethical Dilemma: Facebook Data Breach Essay.

Proceed according to the following instructions.
Identify a recent (within the last six (6) months) ethical dilemma or ethically questionable situation relating to ICT that you are familiar with. This situation can be either in the media (for example one you have sourced from a newspaper, or online through social media) or through your workplace.
a. If using a workplace example, to maintain confidentiality, do not use real names.
b. If you use a media article you must include the link to the media article in the references list of your assignment.
Identify the key ethical issues contained in your chosen case and use the three distinct perspectives of applied ethics including professional, philosophical, sociological/descriptive ethics to analyse the ethical issues involved in the case. , but quotations do. At the start of the assignment indicates in brackets the word count of your assignment excluding those items mentioned above.
Include a Reference list at the end of your work, in the correct APA referencing style, corresponding to in-text citations. You must include at least THREE (3) quality academic references (one for each ethical perspective) from different sources. Please note that these references are in addition to those provided to you through this subject (for example, you still must reference, Tavani textbook, the Interact subject lecture notes etc BUT these references cannot be used as one of your three quality academic references from different sources). Only include references that have been cited in the body of your assignment and ones that support what you have presented in your assignment.

Professional Ethics in the Context of Data Breach

In the present scenario, Facebook is considered as one of the popular social media platforms through which people can communicate with each other in a proper manner. Now day's people are engaged in posting their pictures and status through their Facebook account. This paper will highlight the ethical dilemma which is related to Facebook. Security of information is considered as one of the issues which are faced by many people in the recent era. Majority of the people are using Facebook nowadays and it has also boosted the social interaction between the people. The pictures and their views can be easily shared with the help of Facebook. So, it can be evaluated that through Facebook it can be simple for the people to interact with each other.

The discussion in this paper will be related to the data breach in context to Facebook. This is one of the recent cases in which the privacy of the people has been affected. This case took place in 2018, April (Waterfield, 2014). So, by taking this case there are three perceptive that will be discussed like professional, philosophical and also sociological ethics.

The professional ethics is related with increasing the overall awareness about the need and situation of the consumers. If the emphasis is on the team of information and communication technology then it can be evaluated that there are problems which are faced at the time of managing the entire database. When private information of the people is leaked then it can give a negative impact on their lives and also affect the overall profits of the company (Spiekermann, Acquisti,  Böhme & Hui, 2015). There are many unethical posts which are showcased on the personal account of the people which not only affect the goodwill but also give negative effect on their entire organization working. It is important to consider professional ethics so that it can be easy to earn profits and also to enhance the market share. Professional ethics emphasizes the overall behavior related to personal or business which is essential for the companies so that the information of the customers can be secured (Attfield, 2015).  

Professional ethics focuses on helping the employers so that it can be simple to complete the activities of the company. It is important for the employer to conduct the activities with values and principles. The perceptive related to professional ethics is that standards should be considered if the people behavior for their personal as well as for the professional life. If proper principles are not taken into consideration then it can give negative impacts on the business and also on the people (Murukannaiah, Dabral, Sheshadri, Sharma & Staddon, 2017).

Philosophical Ethics and Facebook Data Breach

By considering the issue related to Facebook breach data it can be seen that there are many people who downloaded many applications where personal information of the people has been shared. Like quiz applications and also other websites the people share their information which is also shared with Cambridge Analytica. So, it can be stated that the organization does not emphasize on the professional ethics. When this issue took place it has been seen that the entire team of Facebook declared that they leaked the information of their customers which is considered as one of the unethical act (Martin, Borah & Palmatier, 2017).

This has given an adverse effect on the image of the organization and the morals that are set by the Facebook team are also affected. When the privacy of the people leaked the company took a serious step that they will focus on considering the ethical guidelines and decisions will also be based on the ethical framework. It is important for the organization to emphasize the ethics related to the profession so that customers can start using their services with proper satisfaction and with this; the image of the company can also be maintained.

The philosophical ethics perceptive has many ethics included in this like virtue ethics, consequentialism and pragmatic ethics. Through this, it can be stated that virtue ethics emphasizes the accurate factors which are concerned with ethics that should be considered. Consequentialism has a motive that should be correct and if results are correct then it can give a positive impact. Pragmatic Ethics is concerned with the overall growth related to society so that image can be maintained in the market. If the company is following all the rules and policies then it can be simple to achieve objectives and goals. Philosophical ethics perceptive is concerned with the defending, systemizing by considering what is right and what is wrong. In the current situation, this perceptive has an important role in the organizations which focus on the latest technologies (Darwall, 2018).

By considering the case of the Facebook breach it has been analyzed that it is essential for the companies to emphasize on the satisfaction level of the customers so that goodwill can be maintained easily. The private information of the people should be a safeguard so that people cannot take any undue advantage.  Facebook changed the setting which focuses on securing the important information of the people. The setting of the company has been changed through which customers can easily know about the privacy. Therefore, it is important for the Facebook to maintain the proper safety of the employees so that operations can take place in an ethical manner. Proper policies related to ICT should be taken into consideration so that it can be simple to focus on the satisfaction level of the customers. Facebook should also focus on the policies so that confidence level of the people can be maintained and people can feel secure at the time of engaging in the services of the company. Without proper policies, it can be difficult for the company to manage the activities or the operations so it is essential to set specified policies which should be conducted (Romanosky, Hoffman & Acquisti, 2014).

Importance of Maintaining Customer Confidence in the Organization

In this ethics, the main emphasis is on securing the customers or the people. Confidentiality plays an important role to maintain the security of the individuals. It tries to maintain proper responsibility and safety of the customers. It has been analyzed that people are capable enough to evaluate the overall morals by focusing on what is right and what is wrong (Vaughn, 2015).  Trust is considered an important factor that should be maintained by the company so that it can be simple to make the customer base. Social perspective should be considered like profession integrity, code of conduct should be followed so that other people cannot take an undue advantage.

The proper policies should be maintained by the company to secure the privacy of the information so that it can be easy to achieve the trust of the customers. There are also many social issues which take place just because of the leakage of the information (Schwartz, 2017). It is important for the company to emphasize on the proper code of conduct so that the operations of the company can be completed with the mutual confidence of the people or the customers. Satisfaction level of the users is important to achieve growth in the marketplace and it can be only done when there is proper trust in the company. If customers are not satisfied with the services offered by the company then it can give a negative impact on the overall growth of the company and also on the individual effect will be given.

References

Attfield, R. (2015). Ethics of the global environment. Edinburgh University Press.

Darwall, S. (2018). Philosophical Ethics: An Historical and Contemporary Introduction. Routledge.

Martin, K. D., Borah, A., & Palmatier, R. W. (2017). Data privacy: Effects on customer and firm performance. Journal of Marketing, 81(1), 36-58.

Murukannaiah, P. K., Dabral, C., Sheshadri, K., Sharma, E., & Staddon, J. (2017, April). Learning a Privacy Incidents Database. In Proceedings of the Hot Topics in Science of Security: Symposium and Bootcamp (pp. 35-44). ACM.

Romanosky, S., Hoffman, D., & Acquisti, A. (2014). Empirical analysis of data breach litigation. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 11(1), 74-104.

Schwartz, D. T. (2017). Consuming choices: Ethics in a global consumer age. Rowman & Littlefield.

Spiekermann, S., Acquisti, A., Böhme, R., & Hui, K. L. (2015). The challenges of personal data markets and privacy. Electronic Markets, 25(2), 161-167.

Vaughn, L. (2015). Doing ethics: Moral reasoning and contemporary issues. WW Norton & Company.

Waterfield, P. (2014). Huge new Facebook data leak exposed intimate details of 3m users. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2168713-huge-new-facebook-data-leak-exposed-intimate-details-of-3m-users/