JOURNAL #3

There are many ethical issues that arise when dealing with technology. One topic that comes up often in discussion is that companies store information about people based on their technology usage. Many do not understand why a company would want to collect information about an individual and do not agree with that process of data collection. The first ethical issue that arises is tracking of individuals, you may notice that if you are walking through the mall and there are many shops nearby you start to get ads for those shops, the reasoning for this is because you phone wants to give you ads personalized to you, so it gives you ads for what is nearby. Tracking of individuals does not seem ethical to most and seems like an invasion of privacy. Another ethical problem that comes with electronic information being stored about individuals is that if there is a corruption in the system, there information may be leaked to thousands of people. An example of information being leaked is when Dunkin Donuts rewards program got hacked into a few years ago, the information being stored such as peoples addresses, phone numbers and credit card information got leaked to the public where it was accessible by people all over the world. This is an ethical problem because people need to have trust in a business to keep their information private. When looking at Echo Dot or Alexa you may think that it is a very convenient tool but when people realized that they were being listened to the entire time that the device was on they no longer wanted this device in their home. Privacy is the number one concern with people around the world today and a device that is listening to a person inside their own home does not seem ethical to many, although it is being used to store data and information to improve the system, many do not agree with this tactic. Lastly, although information today seems like it is more secure than it ever has been, people gaining trust causes a problem because they no longer are careful, an ethical problem that arises is that your information is being collected daily and can be hacked by any individual who can gain access to the system.

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