4 ethical issues with storing personal information

1.)   Selling information: This is a common practice that companies use when you decide to give them information. Facebook has been a culprit in recent years for this by taking information stored into their apps (Birthdays, locations, interests, etc.) and selling them to companies that will then flood targeted ads into your timeline. Sometimes this causes spikes in the sales when users decide to buy a product.

2.)   Not keeping information private: This action is unethical because people’s personal information is important, and it should be treated as such. If anyone’s information is trusted to be held within an organization or company, it should be kept confidential and should not be subject to being shared with anyone else who isn’t the individual. Some sort of confidentiality should be the first priority when it is decided to have the information held.

3.)   Possible Breaches: Breaches are unethical because that is essentially the entire point of allowing a company to hold your information. If a company can’t promise that when someone decides to entrust their private information or data onto them, then they shouldn’t be allowed to hold that data. It would be in the best interest of the individual to keep their information with themselves where it is less likely for them to get attacked

4.) Privacy from others: This is simply referring to anyone who is entering the data. It is only unethical because people sometimes have the feeling of having to judge others. The data may consist of someone else’s money background and the person who is entering it may feel as if they wanted to judge a person for what they have. This is purely hypothetical, but it is possible with the extreme demand of data entry jobs in today’s workforce.