- Describe four ethical issues that arise when storing electronic information about individuals.
- Compare cybersecurity risks in the U.S. and another country.
Storing someone’s personal information is a very unique and important responsibility. There are some very important obligations one has when given this responsibility. Not only are you obligated to control the information exactly how the client wants you to, there are legal consequences in some cases when divulging personal information. Lets discuss some ethical issues below.
- Monetary gain for sale of individual information – You could work for an organization that keeps data on customers such as account numbers, account balance, transaction history, etc. In some jurisdictions releasing this information may not yet have any legal consequences. In that case, a person with access must “do the right thing” and protect access to this data.
- Private medical information- There are laws when it comes to this type of information but also some ethics comes into play. For example, a famous person comes to a hospital and wishes to remain anonymous but someone leaks identifying documents to the press. Or, someone may have died and certain people want access to that medical information and the person does not have the ability to give consent any longer. The controller of that data has to determine who gets access to that information and what are they using it for. This can present ethical challenges to medical professionals with access to this type of data.
- Consumer data-It’s hard to know what consumer data is out there about us. Certainly buying habits, name, address, email, phone, payment info, etc. This data is important and needs to be protected. While we know that it is being bought and sold all the time. This data could be used in other ways. Sold to someone who wants to do harm to an individual. Used to do harm to an individual or something similar.
- Legal information-Maybe you have a lawyer and he has everything from your tax returns to divorce documents. While lawyers have ethics rules to follow, they could certainly not follow them. Maybe they have a falling out with their client and now can use that information to harm or blackmail his client.
As far as a cybersecurity risk between the U.S. and another country I would compare the U.S. and China. Both have robust economies and both are nuclear powers. While both the U.S. and China present a large target for non-state actors, both also share a large state sponsored cybersecurity footprint. Because the relationship between the two countries has always been contentious, the risks of cyber threats from us to them and vice versa is a high priority for both countries to focus on, and presents a huge challenge for both countries to protect data that is collected and stored.