Scenario 1: Protecting Personal Data
Your customer is a community clinic that works with families with problems of family violence. It has three sites in the same city, including a shelter for battered women and children. The director wants a computerized record and appointment system, networked for the three sites. She wants a few laptop computers on which staffers can carry records when they visit clients at home and stay in touch with clients by email. She asked about an app for staffers' smartphones by which they could access records at social service agencies. At the shelter, staffers use only first names for clients, but the records contain last names and forwarding addresses of women who have recently left.
Scenario 2: Email System With Targeted Ads
Your company is developing a free email service that will include targeted advertising based on the content of the email messages (similar to Google's Gmail). You are part of the team designing the system.
What are your ethical responsibilities?
Scenario 3: Webcams in School Laptops
As part of your responsibilities, you oversee the installation of software packages for large orders.
A recent order of laptops for a local school district requires webcam software to be loaded. You know that this software allows for remote activation of the webcam.
Please help to analyse this scenario according to this steps:
Identify responsibilities of the decision maker
Identify rights of stakeholders
Consider the impact of the options on the stakeholders (consequences, risks, benefits, harms, costs)
Categorise each potential action as ethically obligatory, prohibited, or acceptable
When there are multiple options, select one, considering the ethical merits of each, courtesy to others, practicality, self-interest, personal preferences, etc.