KHA734 Ethics And Professional Practice

The Overview of the Title:

The overview of the title is conducting doing ethics technique for the situation where Diana, owner of IT consulting organisation, faces issues with incorporating security in the database management system of a medium sized farm. She believes that if the database is not properly secured then hackers can theft the data. This will lead to ethical issues like reduction in quality of life of the consumers of organisation and many more. The CEO of the organisation does not have the capital for making the system highly secured. Through DET technique, this situation has been analysed.

1: What Is Going On?

1. The doing ethics technique of DET are the method of analysing the ethical issues regarding a scenario (Kamuya et al., 2013). The method does not suggest that the solution that will be generated is the best one, but it assists a person to think the situation ethically.
2. The case scenario states that three years ago Diana started her business. Science the establishment of Diana's own consulting business organisation, it has been a huge success for her.
3. The business was so successful that she currently have several employees in her organisation and it provides services to many consumers. The organisation carries out the process of providing solutions regarding designing database management system, setting up corporate intranets and advising security.
4. At present, for a medium sized origination, she is designing the DBMS system or database management system. The CEO of the organisation that is she working for is not considering security as a major factor. However, in reality, not considering the security of a system as a big aspect can allow hackers to get access to the internal data easily. It may result in theft of sensitive information of organisation and consumer.

2: What are the facts?

1. The main fact moves around the security concerns of the organisation. Diana informed CEO, director of personnel and director of computing. This involvement of the client in the process of designing the database-assisted her making every action more ethical.
2. The system will consist of the information such as salaries, medical records regarding filing insurance claims, evaluations and much more. These data are very sensitive are one organisation must do everything in its hand to secure those (Leicester, 2016).
3. Diana has presented several approaches and solutions for the security of the database system. However, the CEO and other management executives of the organisation believe that implementing a strong security will increase the cost of the development. Therefore, making the system within the budget, the management of the organisation is not interested in investing additional cost in the system security.

3: Ethical and Non-Ethical Issues:

1. It is essential for the management executives of the organisation to consider the ethical and non-ethical issues that are associated with the development of the DBMS or database management system (Leicester, 2016).
2. The development project must be developed within a limited amount of capital. As the organisation is medium sized, it can withstand the excess usage of capital for the project.
3. In terms of organisation's point of view, completing the system within the pre-defined amount is necessary. It is because the excess of capital can cause the organisation to change its business environment (Galliers & Leidner, 2014). This will have a great impact on the employee.
4. The second, non-ethical issue is that the organisation cannot afford to project to be a failure. The IT projects tend to be a failure. After investing so much capital in the project, the only option left in the hand of the organisation will make profit from the system. If the system fails, instead of making capital the organisation will need to invest more in it.
5. The biggest ethical issue is data theft. Diana knows that if she builds the database with minimal security, then it will be a matter of months, the system to be hacked (Leicester, 2016). From the revelation of the employee salaries to the performance evaluation everything is related to the ethical issue.

4:  Who Is Affected?

1. Every stakeholder of the project will be affected by the design of a poorly secured database system.
2. The employees will lose their secrets to each other and consumers, the organisation's sensitive data can end up in the hands of the competitors and Diana may lose reputation for creating such a weak database (Kamuya et al., 2013).
3. The consumers' data of the organisation will be stored in the database. If the hacker gets unauthorised access to the system, then the consumer data can be theft.
4. This will harm the privacy of the consumer. The dissatisfied consumers will never return to the organisation, and it will face a reduction in consumer loyalty.

5.What Are the Ethical Issues and Implications?

1. As discussed above, the ethical issues are related to the privacy concern of employee, consumers and revelation of organisation's data to the public.
2. The ethics of code produced by ACS has six segments. If the scenario is associated with each part, then it can clear the idea of the ethical issue.
3. The database breach will end public privacy is against the first code. The system will partially enhance the quality of life (if functionalities only considered) (Galliers & Leidner, 2014).
4. If Diana agrees with CEO the third code, honesty, is violated.
5. If Diana agrees with management then competence, fourth law, is partially maintained.
6. Professional development, fifth law, is not done.
7. The last law, professionalism, is maintained for either approach. The code suggests that Diana must not continue working on the development of DBMS system if the management agrees with the integration of enhanced security.

6: What Can Be Done About It?

1. There is only two way for Diana to maintain the security as much as possible.
2. The first one is to integrate several small but powerful security algorithms in the system (Kamuya et al., 2013).  
3. Second, prodding training to the users that will not allow generating any possibility of breach from the inside.

7: What are the Options?

1. There are three options in the hand of Diana. The first one is leaving the project.
2. Second is making the system as much secure as possible from her side (Ferrell & Fraedrich, 2015).
3. The last, agreeing with the management and create the system with poor security.

8: Which Option is Best and Why?

1. The second option is the best. It is because this way Diana will be able to justify herself regarding each of the six ethics of codes (Ferrell & Fraedrich, 2015).

Bibliography:

Ferrell, O. C., & Fraedrich, J. (2015). Business ethics: Ethical decision making & cases. Nelson Education.

Galliers, R. D., & Leidner, D. E. (2014). Strategic information management: challenges and strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.

Kamuya, D. M., Theobald, S. J., Munywoki, P. K., Koech, D., Geissler, W. P., & Molyneux, S. C. (2013). Evolving friendships and shifting ethical dilemmas: fieldworkers’ experiences in a short term community based study in Kenya. Developing world bioethics, 13(1), 1-9.

Leicester, N. (2016). Ethics in the IT Profession: Does a Code of Ethics have an Effect on Professional Behaviour?.

Moreno, M., Goniu, N., Moreno, P., & Diekema, D. (2016). 10 Ethical and Regulatory Considerations For Social Media Research. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL NETWORKING, 116.

Venables, A., Tan, G., & Pradhan, S. (2014). A collaborative framework for a cross-institutional assessment to shape future IT professionals. Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology, 11, 215-223.