With the advancement of technology and offsite data storage in the past few years companies have found it easier to store individual data on cloud based systems and software. There are many benefits to storing data electronically, one of which being an almost indefinite amount of storage online. Along with this, paper copies could take a much longer time to edit and revise. Because of the superiority to storing data online almost every company today stores their user data online. These companies could be private owned financial institutions, health centers containing sensitive medical records, and social media websites like Instagram or Twitter which hold information such as your username and password. Knowing this you can say that there is a lot of sensitive information that presents ethical issues to these companies holding onto your important data. One of these being Data breaches. If a data breach was to occur and a malicious hacker stole your sensitive data It could lead to distrust with that company knowing that the company could not keep your data safe. A second ethical issue that could arise is the misuse of data by the company itself. This could be anything to selling your personal information to an employee copying your data making it fraudulent. This could very well lead to a bad image and reputation for a company if sensitive data is misused. My two last ethical issues have to do with confidentiality. Most companies are confidential with their customers or users data. When that confidentiality is disturbed by an outside source such as a malicious hacker or by members of the company. It gives a bad reputation to the company and its security practices if the sensitive and secretive data is not confidential to the user. Dealing with these four ethical issues about individual data is making companies find new strategies on how to keep individual data secure and protected.
Works cited: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6921762