Through your work in this module, you should have gained a robust and multifaceted understanding of ethical concerns about whistleblowing and loyalty, and gained experience using ethical principles to think through whistleblowing and loyalty issues in a cybersecurity context. Next, we’ll be turning to cyberconflict to talk about how cybersecurity tools can be used as weapons, and whether that is ethical. 

Before going on to the next module, take a minute and write down:

• Something about whistleblowing and loyalty that makes sense to you now that didn’t before, or
• Something about whistleblowing and loyalty that you thought made sense before that you realize now does not, or
• Something that you’re still trying to figure out about whistleblowing and loyalty.

Aspects of whistleblowing and loyalty that make sense to me now that didn’t before is the idea of whistleblowing being a loyal act and that the layers of loyalty are complex with organizations. Whenever I knew about acts of whistleblowing, I perceived the whistleblower as someone who only had personal reasons to out a company in that way. While personal reasons are still a large factor as to why someone would blow the whistle, that choice may also be from their loyalty to the organization’s principles and having a desire to have it improved by having information disclosed. There are also factors such as having no other outlet for the information to be released, even if that information is of value to the public for concern or safety. With loyalty, there is flexibility in what relationship it goes to and the existing amount. In organizations, there is no obligation to be loyal, but people can be tied to the values of an organization, or simply choose to blindly follow without considering potential harms. This then ties back into how whistleblowing can be loyal due to an organization’s principles which can extend to protecting the public, but still go against an organization by outing it in this specific way.

Overall, after this module, I now understand how whistleblowing can be a moral act due to valuing the public’s concern, and how employees have varying loyalty that affects the decision to whistleblow in the first place.