ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS IN IT

Ethical and legal implications in cloud computing Howard Beny Ethical and Legal Considerations in Information Technology August 5, 2012 Corinne Dalelio

ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS IN IT ABSTRACT Cloud computing is the process of moving information to the cloud for either storage or processing. What is the cloud and cloud computing? Well, there are two distinct types of

clouds, the first is the internet. Companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon have created servers and storage in data centers that can securely store your information and you could retrieve it from any computer in the world. There are several advantages to this type of storage and its popularity has increased considerably over the last five years. The other cloud is the cloud that resides in companys intranet; this storage is used for internal use only and is very secure and stable. Products like MS SharePoint are one example of a product that, on the front end supports the Intranet cloud. I will be focusing on the public Internet, since the private Intranet is a different animal and the ethics of the Internet clouds will be sufficient for this paper.

ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS IN IT ETHICAL FRAMEWORKS IN IT AND CLOUD COMPUTING The ethical framework in Information Technology (IT) details the moral values and standard behaviors that tell us how to act. When it comes to IT and specifically to cloud computing the ethical behavior of companies is of utmost importance. Imagine that you placed all of you data

with a company that rented cloud storage; sometime later there was a breach and data was stolen, your data. This data contained sensitive information about you and your family; you would lose trust and faith in this company. So, what must be done to protect the information that is entrusted to these companies from an ethical standpoint? It is the decision making that defines the ethics that the company makes that shows how ethical they can be. The other side of the coin is the knowledge of the users. There are millions of people that are using the cloud, but what percentage of them understands the cloud and the probabilities that something will happen to their information. From a legal and medical point of view there is a legal duty to protect the information of the clients and patients. In the context of a law firm, cloud computing raises concerns associated with entrusting a third party with confidential client data. (Newton, Unknown) It will be a partnership of the companys technology experts that, with their ethical behavior, make sure that the information is secure and accessible to only those with the proper access. When you talk about ethics you by default need to talk about the law and the consequences since the two are very interconnected. Technology, particularly revolutionary technology, generates many ethical problems. Sometimes the problems can be treated easily under extant ethical policies. All things being equal using a new technology to cheat on ones taxes is unethical. The fact that new technology is involved does not alter that. But, because new technology allows us to perform activities in new ways, situations may arise in which we do not have adequate policies in place to guide us.

ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS IN IT We are confronted with policy vacuums. (Moor, 2006) Over the last 10-15 years technologies have arisen to do so many good and bad things, there was a school bus monitor in New York State that was verbally abused by 4 middle schoolers, the benefit was that a technology application was used to help her and raise over $600,000 for her. The other side of the coin

contains things that arent ethical like someone creating a virus or hacking into secured servers to retrieve information. These are some of the ethical problems that the new technology has created, stealing without leaving your home. When we talk about the cloud technologies we encounter the very same ethical issues. The companies that host these data centers are aware of these challenges of keeping the data that is entrusted to them safe, but Im not quite sure they are upholding the ethical side when it comes to helping their customers. There is a balance between costs and ensuring the customers store their information securely. If the data is in a secure physical location, is protected from hackers and the like, but the user is allowed to create a weak password that is easy to break, whose fault is it, ethically speaking? In the case of cloud computing the laws has gotten very muddy, because data that is housed in a U.S. based company on U.S. soil might have different laws than a company and data that is based in Japan. What jurisdiction would you go to when you have data from all over the world? In one instance, European concerns about US privacy laws led to creation of the US Safe Harbor Privacy Principles, which are intended to provide European companies with a degree of insulation from US laws. (Binning, 2009) There havent been much legislation on cloud computing and all I can find are hearings on the subject. One of the first hearings was an exploration on: THE NEXT IT REVOLUTION? CLOUD COMPUTING OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES This excerpt from the hearing relates to the possibility for the need of legislation: Lack of certainty associated with the laws and regulations

ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS IN IT governing migration of services to cloud computing has prevented more widespread adoption. Different industries face different regulatory frameworks which exacerbate problems of uncertainty. Liability concerns associated with data protection may prevent companies from migrating data away from their direct control. Finally, because liability and data storage

regulations differ among countries, companies may be hesitant to expose themselves to potential lawsuits by migrating services to the cloud. (U.S. House Subcommittee on Science, Space, and Technology, 2011) The lack of legislation and regulation has not caused undue issues or loss of data, but it is inevitable that some type of legislation is yet to come, right after a significant breach. There are currently laws to prosecute hackers, writers of viruses and others; these will have to do for the time being. The cloud computing environment is the new old west. Evan though cloud computing has been around for a while, these has been little legislation to protect the data, and there will never be, simply because of this little question: whose data is it and where does it physically sit? We rely on the ethical practices of the companies that host the servers and data centers to live by a code. What we as individuals need to understand is that we need to manage our security, our passwords and understand where the data is stored. The ethical framework that motivates us and the companies that service us must always strive for the highest level of protection.

ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS IN IT

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