Select from one of the following scenarios:
You are the IT administrator for your company. One of the employees discovers a loophole in the security whereby the employees may access the personnel records of other employees in the company. Personnel records include names, addresses, Social Security numbers, disciplinary actions, annual reviews, and salary information. You are working on a time-sensitive project and do not fix the problem for 2 weeks. As you are fixing the problem, you note that several employees have accessed personnel records using the loophole.
You are the CIO of a large national auto retailer. As a part of your service, you offer auto loans through your dealerships. This requires your company to collect and store personally identifiable information on your customers. Additionally, you store customer bank account and credit card information so that customers can use automatic payment options for their loans. Recently, your company has been hacked, and a significant number of client accounts have been breached. The CEO is demanding that the IT group handle this privately rather than reporting the breach for fear that publicizing the information will have a negative effect on quarterly earnings.
Complete the following for your chosen scenario:
Analyze your chosen scenario from the aspect of computing ethics and privacy ethics.
Discuss the ethical dilemma from the perspective of societal ethics, organizational ethics, and individual ethics.
Research on the Internet to determine what data security and privacy laws are relevant in this scenario.
Describe each law and consequences for violation of the law.
Discuss the reputational and financial impact this scenario might have on the organization.
From the perspective of the IT administrator in Scenario 1, or the perspective of the CIO in Scenario 2, how would you respond to the situation? Justify your response from an ethical and legal perspective.
Discuss recent legislation related to ethical computing.