Information ethics: On the philosophical foundation of computer ethics

The essential difficulty about Computer Ethics' (CE) philosophical status is a methodological problem: standard ethical theories cannot easily be adapted to deal with CE-problems, which appear to strain their conceptual resources, and CE requires a conceptual foundation as an ethical theory. Information Ethics (IE), the philosophical foundational counterpart of CE, can be seen as a particular case of “environmental” ethics or ethics of the infosphere. What is good for an information entity and the infosphere in general? This is the ethical question asked by IE. The answer is provided by a minimalist theory of deseerts: IE argues that there is something more elementary and fundamental than life and pain, namely being, understood as information, and entropy, and that any information entity is to be recognised as the centre of a minimal moral claim, which deserves recognition and should help to regulate the implementation of any information process involving it. IE can provide a valuable perspective from which to approach, with insight and adequate discernment, not only moral problems in CE, but also the whole range of conceptual and moral phenomena that form the ethical discourse.     

An overview of information ethics issues in a world-wide context

This article presents an overview of significant issues facing contemporary information professionals. As the world of information continues to grow at unprecedented speed and in unprecedented volume, questions must be faced by information professionals. Will we participate in the worldwide mythology of equal access for all, or will we truly work towards this debatable goal? Will we accept the narrowing of choice for our corresponding increasing diverse clientele? Such questions must be considered in a holistic context and an understanding of the many levels of information inequities is requisite. Beginning with an historical perspective, Buchanan presents Mustapha Masmoudi's seminal review of forms of information inequities. She then describes qualitative forms of inequities, such as information imperialism and cultural bias embedded in such practices as cataloging and classification. Following, a review of quantitative inequities is presented. Such issues as the growing commoditization of information and information services demand attention from the ethical perspective. And, finally, the Internet and implications surrounding the world-wide dissemination of information is discussed. The article concludes with an extraction form Richard Sclove's Democracy and Technology, and asks that we as information professionals actively examine the information industry around us and demand a more democratic process within which to work.     

Information ethics and the law of data representations

The theories of information ethics articulated by Luciano Floridi and his collaborators have clear implications for law. Information law, including the law of privacy and of intellectual property, is especially likely to benefit from a coherent and comprehensive theory of information ethics. This article illustrates how information ethics might apply to legal doctrine, by examining legal questions related to the ownership and control of the personal data representations, including photographs, game avatars, and consumer profiles, that have become ubiquitous with the proliferation of information and communication technologies. Recent controversy over the control of player performance statistics in “fantasy” sports leagues provides a limiting case for the analysis. Such data representations will in many instances constitute the kind of personal data that information ethics asserts constitutes an information entity. Legal doctrine in some instances proves sympathetic to such an assertion, but remains largely inchoate as to which data might constitute a given information entity in a given instance. Neither is information ethics, in its current state of development, entirely helpful in answering this critical question. While information ethics holds some promise to bring coherence to this area of the law, further work articulating a richer theory of information ethics will be necessary before it can do so.     

Information technology, globalization and ethics

This paper illustrates the overlap of computer ethics and business ethics by examining two issues. The first is the lack of fit between digitalized information and copyright protection. Although there are moral arguments that can be used to justify protection of intellectual property, including computer software and digitalized data, the way that copyright protection has developed often reflects vested interests rather than the considered weighing of moral considerations. As a result, with respect to downloading MP3s, among other material, what is ethical is largely determined by the appropriately passed laws in each jurisdiction, and what is ethically permissible in one jurisdiction may be ethically impermissible in another. The second issue is the outsourcing of IT jobs from the U.S. While the practice has been politicized, examining it from an all-things-considered perspective, this paper argues it is ethically justified.I wrote this while I was a Resident at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study and Conference Center and I am pleased to acknowledge the support of the Foundation. I gave an abridged version of this paper at the Third World Congress of Business, Economics and Ethics in Melbourne, Australia, in July, 2004.     

Investigating context factors in citizen participation strategies: A comparative analysis of Swedish and Belgian smart cities

Modern cities currently face numerous challenges related to mobility, waste management, access to resources, etc. Smart Cities integrate information and communication technologies (ICT) to develop innovative solutions that can solve such challenges and create a higher quality of life for their citizens. Two elements need to be considered for smart cities to be successful. First, citizens must participate in the design of the smart city to take advantage of their ideas so that the smart city answers their real needs. Secondly, each city has its own unique characteristics that need to be considered to design a citizen participation strategy truly tailored and adapted to their respective context. In line with these two considerations, the goal of this paper is to identify the context factors that impact citizen participation strategies in smart cities. In order to reach that goal, we performed a qualitative case study of two cities that strive to be smart: Namur (Belgium) and Linköping (Sweden). This analysis allows us to understand how participation is implemented in two different cases and to infer the context factors that impact the respective strategies. Five context-factors have been identified in this study: the smart city consideration, the drivers for participation, the degree of centralization, the legal requirements, and the citizens’ characteristics. By identifying these factors, we can derive context-dependent recommendations about citizen participation for smart cities. These recommendations are then applied to the case of Brussels in Belgium.     

Putting mobile application privacy in context: An empirical study of user privacy expectations for mobile devices

Users increasingly use mobile devices to engage in social activity and commerce, enabling new forms of data collection by firms and marketers. User privacy expectations for these new forms of data collection remain unclear. A particularly difficult challenge is meeting expectations for contextual integrity, as user privacy expectations vary depending upon data type collected and context of use. This article illustrates how fine-grained, contextual privacy expectations can be measured. It presents findings from a factorial vignette survey that measured the impact of diverse real-world contexts (e.g., medical, navigation, music), data types, and data uses on user privacy expectations. Results demonstrate that individuals’ general privacy preferences are of limited significance for predicting their privacy judgments in specific scenarios. Instead, the results present a nuanced portrait of the relative importance of particular contextual factors and information uses, and demonstrate how those contextual factors can be found and measured. The results also suggest that current common activities of mobile application companies, such as harvesting and reusing location data, images, and contact lists, do not meet users’ privacy expectations. Understanding how user privacy expectations vary according to context, data types, and data uses highlights areas requiring stricter privacy protections by governments and industry.     

信息社会化知识经济化背景下图书馆建设理念的思考

探讨了信息、知识经济时代图书馆的建设。随着知识经济时代的到来,图书馆所处的环境发生了巨大变化,图书馆的发展方向是全新概念的、多功能的现代信息中心,通过网络服务来不断促进图书馆建设,促进现代化图书馆的发展。本文阐述了图书馆建设应与其发展变化趋势相适应,提出了图书馆建设的新理念。     

论传统伦理的科学理性思维

当代的环境问题固然是近代工业文明资本主义工业化的恶果,但其深层原因却是传统伦理中的传统科学理性思维。传统伦理观念否认人与自然间存在伦理关系,体现的是人类中心主义的思维方式。     

Mapping the foundationalist debate in computer ethics

The paper provides a critical review of thedebate on the foundations of Computer Ethics(CE). Starting from a discussion of Moor'sclassic interpretation of the need for CEcaused by a policy and conceptual vacuum, fivepositions in the literature are identified anddiscussed: the ``no resolution approach',according to which CE can have no foundation;the professional approach, according to whichCE is solely a professional ethics; the radicalapproach, according to which CE deals withabsolutely unique issues, in need of a uniqueapproach; the conservative approach, accordingto which CE is only a particular appliedethics, discussing new species of traditionalmoral issues; and the innovative approach,according to which theoretical CE can expandthe metaethical discourse with a substantiallynew perspective. In the course of the analysis,it is argued that, although CE issues are notuncontroversially unique, they are sufficientlynovel to render inadequate the adoption ofstandard macroethics, such as Utilitarianismand Deontologism, as the foundation of CE andhence to prompt the search for a robust ethicaltheory. Information Ethics (IE) is proposed forthat theory, as the satisfactory foundation forCE. IE is characterised as a biologicallyunbiased extension of environmental ethics,based on the concepts of information object/infosphere/entropy rather thanlife/ecosystem/pain. In light of the discussionprovided in this paper, it is suggested that CEis worthy of independent study because itrequires its own application-specific knowledgeand is capable of supporting a methodologicalfoundation, IE.     

Information ethics as information ecology: Connecting Frankl’s thought and fundamental informatics

To overcome “digital reductionism,” a new kind of mechanical view on human beings, fundamental informatics provides some critical viewpoints. It regards information as “meaning” generated in living things which do not exist alone but are parts of ecological system. On the other hand, V. E. Frankl proposed two dimensions of humans: homo sapiens and homo patiens. The latter is the essential aspect of humans whose essence is “compassion,” while the former is the nature like a mechanical machine. As features of living things, unrestricted ability of interpretation as well as inseparable relationships between others underlies both in Frankl’s thought and fundamental informatics. This viewpoint can be applied to the concept of “information literacy.”