The storing of electronic information about individuals has been an ongoing issue from the personal level to the federal government. Now we have at least two generations that have grown up with the internet as their baseline in humanity. The fact that we have varied generations of people involved in the world of cyber space is pushing us forward in advancements and showing the need for a more secure means of information storage. Outlining four of the many ethical issues will help shed some light on the ongoing issue of with personally identifiable information (PII).

Some companies hire people that also use their services as well. We will talk about the Veteran’s Administration as the first example. Here at the V.A. you can be a patient and employee at the same time. This can worry some if not many and can arise such questions as: Will they hire a person if they know history, Do they secretly use this information in weeding out of potential employees… HIPPA doesn’t allow this type of activity, but it has happened, maybe not in the hiring process; but employee to employee misuse of personal information.

In recent news the SolarWinds hack compromised a system called Orion. The hack could unleash massive amounts personal information of all sorts to various players in the world arena or just to the world in general. Ethics is probably lowest on their scales of importance, but now it is in the hands of people who want to exploit all the personal information for what its worth.

Speaking on the previous example, another ethical issue is the potential for financial gain by persons with malicious intent. In today’s world, more and more people have all their personal information stored so that automatically they can log into whatever banking, personal, and social site with the click of the mouse.  This gives hackers the ability to easily attack someone and financially gain from exploiting someone’s weakness in cyber awareness. Identity theft has been a word that people recognize even before the internet. Most companies big and small store all sorts of information. The DMV is probably one that is all inclusive concerning the types of personal information stored with in their system. Imagine the DMV has an employee that has access, knowledge, and intent. What could happen? These issues concerning the storing of electronic information presented to you today should at least raise some questions as to what is happening with my personal information when it is stored.