When Ethics and IT Collide 414
jcatcw writes "IT workers have access to confidential data, and they can see what other employees are doing on their computers or the networks. This can put a good worker in a bad predicament. Bryan, the IT director for the U.S. division of German company, discovered an employee using a company computer to view pornography of Asian women and of children. He reported it but the company ignored it. Subsequently the employee was promoted and moved to China to run a manufacturing plant. That was six years ago but Bryan still regrets not going to the FBI. Other IT workers admit using their admin passwords to snoop through company systems. In a Ponemon Institute poll of more than 16,000 U.S. IT practitioners, 62% said they had accessed another person's computer without permission, 50% read confidential or sensitive information without a legitimate reason, and 42% said they had knowingly violated their company's privacy, security or IT policies. But in the absence of a professional code of ethics, companies struggle to keep corporate policies up to date."
There *is* a code of ethics (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.acm.org/about/code-of-ethics [acm.org]
There is no Absence! (Score:5, Informative)
The code of ethics is found here:
http://lopsa.org/CodeOfEthics [lopsa.org]
While my IT department does not require membership in this organization, these rules of ethics are *posted* and violations of those rules are a fireable offense!
Re:There is no Absence! (Score:3, Informative)
But adopting a code like this as departmental "law" does two important things:
1. It puts employees we serve at ease because they have a measuring stick for our conduct. (A copy of the LOPSA code is included in the new employee materials)
2. It gives the IT director leverage to cleanly and efficiently fire workers when ethical mis-steps occur.
You're right: "I" don't need the "code"- but it has good uses.
Are you willing to pay the increasing salaries? (Score:5, Informative)
No? Not willing to pay up? Oh well then, you can't really complain.
Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not entirely ethics (Score:1, Informative)
Psychopaths. (Score:2, Informative)
A psychopath does.
They are about 1% of the population and apparently have a brain defect (akin to color blindness) that amounts to having no conscience.
If they don't "compensate" by voluntarily adopting a clear set of rules of conduct (or even if they do but the code is deficient) they are likely to become criminal menaces.
(It's also possible to learn behaviors that suppress conscience, with similar results. In fact this appears to be somewhat more common - at least among career criminals - than the actual mental defect. One expert in the field distinguishes the two cases by reserving the term "sociopath" for the latter - though "sociopath" is normally applied to either.)
Most of law, religion, and culture - along with the distinctions between cultures - is related to how to handle this fraction of the population. Teaching them rules of conduct (either to block misbehavior or to direct it only at outside-the-tribe groups), convincing them to adopt such rules (typically by teaching them that following he rules is good for "number one" - either in this world or an afterlife), penalizing them for misbehavior, separating them from the general population and warehousing, deporting, or killing them.
Because the suffering of others doesn't cause them mental anguish they can be some of the worst of people: Torturing, raping, and killing for their own fun. For the same reason they can be the best of people: They have to CONSCIOUSLY DECIDE to be good and work hard at it - which IMHO is far more meritorious than being good because been bad feels bad. And for the same reason they can do very well as decision makers and leaders, able to think clearly when making decisions where suffering and/or death are involved.
Compensated and partially-compensated psychopaths gravitate to positions in politics, management, sales, and crime. And those who have not fully compensated (a difficult task) occasionally cause headlines and distrust for all practitioners of those first professions when they combine one of them with that last one. B-)
So an executive who is willing to break the rules to indulge his interest in banned sexual practices by viewing banned or frowned-upon reading material on the company network is hardly surprising. What matters is whether he's compensated enough to restrict his enjoyment to reading material or if he'll also do some enjoying of it in real life (or let it affect his managerial decisions in an improper way).
Re:There *is* a code of ethics (Score:3, Informative)
The difference for "mandatory reporters" is that they are legally required to report even suspicions of abuse, not just cases where they have evidence or knowledge. Abuse is usually very hard to recognize with any certainty.
Re:At the end of the day, it's your reflection. (Score:3, Informative)
I tend to be of the same opinion, but I also recognize that there's such a thing as probable cause. Sometimes people act creepy just because they're eccentric. Other people act creepy because they really are doing creepy things.
There's a huge difference between looking more closely at someone who's drawn attention to themselves and framing that person. Most rational adults are quite capable of doing the former without stooping to the latter. The alternative is deliberately looking the other way regardless of warning signs, and frankly, that's just cowardice.
Moderation and caution, my friend.