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."
Why bother keeping corporate policies up to date? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not entirely ethics (Score:1, Insightful)
Summary has 2 different ethical problems (Score:3, Insightful)
2) Actively doing things that the employee knows are illegal/immoral/unethical. Come on - does a "profession" really need a code of ethics to tell its members not to seek information to which they are not entitled? Maybe they need to reevaluate calling themselves "professionals".
If you want a good example of corp. ethics... (Score:1, Insightful)
Wakka Wakka Wakka!
So where is the "ethical dilemma"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where's the ethical dilemma?
If HR does nothing about it, you report it to the FBI.
Where's the ethical dilemma?
And ethical dilemma would be where there were two ethically valid choices with different consequences. If you have two kids and they're both drowning, which one do you save first?
Re:Why talk about Ethics (Score:4, Insightful)
5% of us would vote randomly
6% will definitely be stuffing the ballot box
7% Might be stuffing the ballot box
Or worse yet:
17% will choose the Cowboy Neal option
When my pay is ethical, I'll worry about the rest (Score:5, Insightful)
Using company systems for your own needs? heck, the company is alreaady getting 40 grand worth of free overtime. Is that ethical?
Never mind legal, is is ETHICAL?
Re:So where is the "ethical dilemma"? (Score:2, Insightful)
We're assuming, of course, that the information was gained through means not allowed by company policy, and that you were just snooping. This is why police have to get warrants to bust into peoples houses and all that.
75% of all stats are made up on the spot... (Score:4, Insightful)
I know of people instantly fired for doing such things. There is an unwritten IT code and the vast majority of IT people I have known or ever come in contact with follow it.
Re:There *is* a code of ethics (Score:5, Insightful)
Choose one of these two, and break the code both ways:
1.7 Respect the privacy of others.
1.8 Honor confidentiality.
2.6 Honor contracts, agreements, and assigned responsibilities.
2.8 Access computing and communication resources only when authorized to do so.
3.1 Articulate social responsibilities of members of an organizational unit and encourage full acceptance of those responsibilities.
3.5 Articulate and support policies that protect the dignity of users and others affected by a computing system.
1.2 Avoid harm to others.
2.1 Strive to achieve the highest quality, effectiveness and dignity in both the process and products of professional work.
2.3 Know and respect existing laws pertaining to professional work.
3.2 Manage personnel and resources to design and build information systems that enhance the quality of working life.
3.3 Acknowledge and support proper and authorized uses of an organization's computing and communication resources.
Permission? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:When my pay is ethical, I'll worry about the re (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have an ethics issue with your current job, you should quit, and find a new job. The last thing you should ever want is to be thought of as a person who will compromise his principles for money.
Conflation of different areas (Score:4, Insightful)
- morally wrong (going against your own personal conscience)
- legally wrong (going against codified law)or
- sinful (going against your religious beliefs)
Watching child pornography is illegal in all relevant legal systems, and not reporting someone to the authorities could be considered a crime of omission or obstruction of justice. It might be sinful, depending on your religion. It is probably considered morally wrong by the majority of people.The problem I see with the dilemma posed by the article is that he tries to conflate these areas and to get a mental map that divides things neatly into The Right Thing(TM) and The Wrong Thing(TM). I think this approach vastly over-simplifies things; take file-sharing, for instance: many instances are illegal since they break copyright law. Yet I wouldn't think it is immoral, since the laws appear to be unjustly slanted against consumers. I couldn't say how religions see the issue (the closest I could find was a quote from the Bible: "go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor" which seems to speak out against hoarding property), so I won't make a qualified judgement on that.
But it should be clear that this is a complex issue, and people trying to frame it in terms of "right" and "wrong" without specifying the framework they're using makes a good answer almost impossible.
Re:Not entirely ethics (Score:2, Insightful)
Not me. (Score:5, Insightful)
I just don't care. Yeah, it might be nice to intercept early the memo that says I'm going to get canned tomorrow (or whatever) but I have more than enough things on my plate and no time, motivation, or incentive to play Secret Squirrel with other people's stuff. I have news for you: 99.9999% of what happens on a business network is mind numbingly boring. Memos. Transmittals. Materials lists. Spreadsheets. Schedules. Business correspondence so packed with legalese and ass-kissing and meaningless paradigm shifting buzzword bullshit it makes my brain hurt just thinking about it.
If I want to abuse my authority and misappropriate company time and network access, it's easier and less mind-frazzling to just delegate the job to somebody else and go read Slashdot.
What privacy? There is no privacy at work. (Score:5, Insightful)
There was no privacy here, therefore no ethical issue.
Re:Looking (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:There is no Absence! (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless you were raised by wolves, you already know the difference between right and wrong. Looking through someone's email is just as wrong as looking through their postal mail or peeping through their windows. You don't need to take any ethics classes to know that it's wrong.
What's wrong with asian women? (Score:4, Insightful)
I know what the author was trying to get across, and there was plenty of cause to call the FBI, but lumping the asian women with children is just demeaning to the women.
Re:Conflation of different areas (Score:4, Insightful)
* ethically wrong (violating a codified system to which you have agreed, but which is not backed by threat of physical force)
People get that one confused with the other 3 as well.
Ethical can be thought of as polar from legal: You don't agree to abide by the legal system, but you're threatened by physical force if you don't comply.
Re:When my pay is ethical, I'll worry about the re (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, the other side to that discussion is understanding the that typical salaried employee is not *working* eight hours in the day. Even removing 10 minute breaks and lunch the average time spent actually working is only 3 to 4 hours a day. (I cannot remember the article at the moment). We talk to co-workers, surf the net, stare at the screen, but we do not (nor cannot) produce a full 8 hours of productive effort.
So, the 50 or 60 hours spent in the office may actually add up to 5 or 6 hours of productive work a day still leaving us "short" on the salaried contract of 40 hours paid time. Thus are the workers being ethical?
What is lacking is the 40 hour work week pay structure. It does not fit the information age work place found mainly in development/enginerring shops today. Since I started in my profession many many moons ago I have never understood this mentality of 9 to 5, 40 hours a week. I work on projects. SOmetimes I work better in the early morning, sometimes at night. there are days when my brain is stuff with wool, days when I cannot be stopped. Yet up until recently I would get in my car, drive to a uninspiring cubicle and attempt to think for "The Man" to justify my salary.
Thankfully these days I now work at home, adjust my schedule to fit my personal and professional needs, and still make my project dates. I have a boss who understands how to manage that situation for which I am blessed. At work they block web sites, streaming radio, and even hae a policy on headphones so like a 1984ish nightmare I am to sit and work work work till the whistle blows.
Okay, I digress, but I do feel there is an ethical issue when companies attempt to keep you "working" past 40 hours without some compensation, but we do have to understand that generally we are marking some time during that work day, it is not all production.
Good point!
Re:There *is* a code of ethics (Score:5, Insightful)
It has been posited by my legal department that IT workers are "mandatory reporters" in cases of cyber crime, child abuse, and terrorism.
This opinion, which I have not seen tested in court, seems exceptionally relevant considering that like teachers (who are often the first to see child abuse), nurses/doctors (the first to treat physical abuse), and police (the first to intervene in domestic abuse) IT people are a first detector for a myriad of crimes.
Thus, based on legal advice, my employees are instructed to notify law enforcement *before* notifying management. (In some states this may actually be law now)
So yes, this code of ethics, as well as the LOPSA Code I linked below- do apply. Assuming of course the IT director isn't one of those management monkeys who likes to bury things "for the good of the company".
Re:Looking (Score:2, Insightful)
Because those who look at them create a demand to produce them.
Re:What privacy? There is no privacy at work. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat (Score:5, Insightful)
"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."
And how did he know this, if he wasn't LOOKING at the damned stuff himself?
1. Someone looking at adult porn is not an "ethical problem", unless you got your ethics from the bible belt.
2. Someone looking at kiddie porn isn't an "ethical problem" either - its a legal problem! Like in "against the law".
3. Not reporting it because you would have to admit you were snooping on other people - priceless AND retarded.
Re:What's wrong with asian women? (Score:3, Insightful)
In the eyes of the law, women are often equated to be as helpless (and as unable to make reasonable decisions) as children.
Just throwin that out there.
Re:Summary has 2 different ethical problems (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet you they have codes of ethics too concerning not stealing things in their clients homes and such.
A jerk is a jerk no matter what industry they're in.
Actually, the most sensible thing is (Score:4, Insightful)
And who wants to fuss with that. My advice would be to (a) never look at anything that would cause you to be forced to report anything (b) if you do, make sure no one else knows and pretend it never happened (c) if caught in a dilemma, tell your boss anyway and say you weren't sure if this applied and you need his/her guidance.
That's the only sensible thing to do, but I realize you can't give that as official advice.
Re:Not entirely ethics (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not to say I disagree with you that a reasonable amount of personal activity on company time should be tolerated, just that your excuse sucks.
Surely you jest!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat (Score:4, Insightful)
Because it:
That's why. Whenever you don't understand a corporate decision, just ask yourself, "Who benefits from this?", and soon the reason will become obvious. It's not that corporations make non-sensical decisions; rather, that corporate decisions are often motivated more by internal politics and the need to maintain a semblance of professionalism than anything else.
Re:Looking (Score:1, Insightful)
Repressing all outlets for a bad impulse leaves only one (very bad) option for satisfying it.
Re:At the end of the day, it's your reflection. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why it is so scary to let certain people, delusional paranoids such as yourself, to have this power. It boggles the mind what someone would have done to convince you that they were a kiddy fiddler, wearing black clothes, taling quietly, maybe they just weren't that social - i am pretty sure that they didn't have disturbing pictures around the cubical. I guess he is just glad that you weren't so convinced that you dropped a few extra files onto his machine - all in order to protect your children from the non-existant menace. Congratulations, I am sure your witch hunting will be put to better use next time.
Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat (Score:3, Insightful)
If they were able to negotiate that salary from the corporate management, then they aren't excessively paid. Companies pay people according to their perceived worth. If you are willing to do the same job at the same quality level for less money, then not only are you being foolish in the personal financial realm, but you are devaluing the IT skill set for everyone else as well. Part of what a professional licensing organization would do is seek to maintain or raise the market value of the IT skill sets.
Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously -- why even bring up the Asian aspect at all, as though that's somehow relevant? I can understand being worried about children, but worried about Asian women? Give me a break.
Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat (Score:2, Insightful)
A strange thing I notice from experiance, it is the line managers with no real education that are unethical boobs. In other words, it is the technician that got promoted because they convinced an idiot that you don't need a peice of paper to manage. What do I know though, our most unethical managers around here have either no degree or only an associates in some form of applied technology.
Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you know different IT folks than I do. Most of the IT guys I know would do very poorly in both of these roles.
I think the point of a "Professional Association" is that it would raise the risk of unethical behavior. Right now you get caught with your fingers in the cookie jar & lose your job, you'll have a new one in a few months, and the old job will likely only "confirm employment" because of HR policy. If there was a professional society companies could refer to, they might able to inflict a more serious punishment. Of course, given the lack of success with similar professional organizations in Law & Medicine in policing their memberships, my confidence level is low.
Re:At the end of the day, it's your reflection. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure how you are drawing distinctions here. If an action is ethically wrong, then it is ethically wrong regardless of what your personal motivations are when you do it.
Sniffing employee emails for no reason is ethically wrong, as you stated. But sniffing employee emails (ok, web traffic) is not ethically wrong because you have a hunch?
This is why we have a field of study called ethics in the first place ... the rules are supposed to guide you so that you don't let your intuition and hunches lead you down the ugly dark paths.
Re:At the end of the day, it's your reflection. (Score:2, Insightful)
Being creepy isn't really enough for me.
Here's two cheerful thoughts for you. One, all this proves is that he doesn't look at it at work. Two, not all pedos look/act obviously creepy. Some look and act like that neighbor of yours. You know the one I'm talking about.
Re:What's wrong with asian women? (Score:2, Insightful)
But the instant you show any preference whatsoever for a member of the opposite sex who is outside your designated "race", congratulations, you now have a deviancy. Our society frowns heavily upon mixed marriages. Unless the person you have your eye on is locally accepted as being of the same "race" as you, you can basically forget about any kind of long term relationship. The weight of your society's disapproval will crush all but the most independent of couples.
And people wonder why there are so little "mixed marriages". When such behavior is tacitly lumped with pedophilia, is it any wonder?
Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of the good IT professionals I know don't have certifications, they let their work and references speak for themselves.
Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, please do vigilante justice. It's not like you'd ruin anyones life if you were wrong.
Re:Or Microsoft... (Score:2, Insightful)
You expect a corporation to have any ethics whatsoever? Read your own post.
This is exactly what corporations are designed to do. Make a profit, no matter the cost. Break the law? It's not a question of if it's legal. It's a question of how much the punishment will cost, and if that cost is greater than the profit of committing the act. In fact, if a publicly held company sees a way to make more money by bending (or sometimes breaking) the law, then does not do it because it may be illegal, the board can be liable to shareholder lawsuits! What a wonderful system we live under, eh?
Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with you that it is how it should work. I hope you don't think that's how upper management pay scale works in the real world. Given that the people in charge of the large organizations don't play by those rules, it makes little sense for the people that work for the large organizations to play by those rules.
From my own personal experience: I'm a stagehand, I used to work Off-Broadway on for-profit commercial shows (multi-million dollars budgets). Most of the stagehands that work in those venues have college degrees in stagecraft. The pay scale works out to a lower lower middle class lifestyle in NYC. $20 an hour doesn't go far in NYC. Forget raising a family on that here. Forget health insurance. There was a high attrition rate, but there was always a new batch of college grads that would fill the ranks. Then I moved on to Broadway. Broadway stagehands are union. The job is really the same, but we make twice as much money as Off-Broadway. The attrition rate is pretty low. People have insurance and can afford to have kids. The tickets cost twice as much for the consumer. Yet strangely, Broadway is thriving, while the Commercial Off-Broadway scene is slowly vanishing, so your theoretical "blight on consumers" doesn't seem to be happening. Granted there are unions out there who don't honestly factor in profits (or lack there of) when they are making demands in a contract negotiation. Not only do those unions give other unions a bad name, but they destroy their own industry. However, there is plenty of room between "destroying the industry" and "the minimum that someone will accept for the job" It's that difference that keeps the attrition rate low and allows for stagehands with decades of high level experience, those experienced stagehands are well worth the price of two or three fresh from college employees. In the non-union Off-Broadway scene those experienced workers never emerge because of attrition, but there is always someone willing to do the job. Now be it a union or a professional licensing organization, keeping the labor cost/value above the bare minimum, but within what the industry will bear, results a healthier more sustainable work culture. As for end-consumer costs, those are always as high as the market will bear, the only difference is the internal distribution of the cash flow. By doing any job for less than the guy who was doing the job yesterday, are you really going to save the consumer money or are you just increasing the year-end bonus for someone already in the highest tax bracket? You seem to have some sort of pride in your willingness to do-more-for-less, as though that will somehow make life better for the common man or will earn you the love and respect of the company you work for. From my perspective: you are the common man, make life better for yourself by attaching a (carefully considered) high price to your labor. A paycheck that supports a high standard of living is how companies show respect.
Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why bother keeping corporate policies up to dat (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure it's an ethical problem! That's why it's against the law.