When in possession of other user’s personal information, it is likely that those tasked with maintaining said information may find themselves in some ethical predicaments. The information stored from others tends to be sensitive in nature; information that could prove detrimental to the user if released to the public.

Commonly utilized private user information such as home addresses and passwords can be accessed by sites that house them. If a hacker is able to compromise the site and access their metadata, a criminal may now have access to the current living residence of a user and the password they used for the site (which may be connected to other password protected information), and etc. Other information that could potentially be found and exploited is a user’s credit card, debit card, or general banking information. Cyber criminals can exploit a site and commit fraud utilizing a user’s banking information to pay for items that the user themselves did not pay for.

The quality or integrity of the system that maintains the electronic information can also be exploited to compromise parts of or the whole portion of data collected either by the site or of the users themselves.

A criminal with access to personal information stored electronically could also commit many forms of fraud. Including but not limited to identity, insurance, credit card, etc. Access to a person’s full legal name, address, credit card information, and other personal information that could be stored electronically (like the name of a first pet or mother’s maiden name) can be used by criminals to commit crimes under the name or moniker of an exploited user. Being exploited for personal information that was found through an exploitation within a site can leave that aforementioned site liable to lawsuits by those affected by a breach in confidentiality.