Ethical Issues in IT

Ethical Issues Between IT Professional and Client

Client-Professional trust:

Both the client and the IT professional are charged with revealing important and relevant information. This is part of keeping the trust between the two of them. Additionally, it is the IT professional’s charge to respect the privacy of the account, the client, and anything else related to work. A breech of either of these is a breech of ethical behaviors and can cause a great deal of problems for the company or individual IT individual.

Additionally, it important that decision making is a joint venture. Clients trust that the IT professional will advise them as to options they have, and generally act in the best interest of the client. Similarly, the client must provide all relevant information so that the IT professional isn’t advising based on misrepresented or incomplete information.

Contractual violations:

A violation of contract is severely unethical, and yet, while this is common knowledge it still seems to happen too often.

Recommendation of company or affiliated vendor product.

These sorts of recommendations can severely damage a company’s reputation as it brings up trust issues and what is really most important to the IT professional. The IT professional’s purpose is to meet the needs of the client without pushing their own products or services. As such, when problems are detected, the professional company would merely provide clients with details of the problems and different options for fixing it. These options should be free of product bias or anything else promoting the company. They should merely be informative and educational.

Lack of proper communication between IT professional and client.

This can be a serious problem since IT professionals may fail to report problems until the problem is at a “crisis” stage. This happens due to the fact that contractual penalties may be incurred for falling behind in schedule. At the crisis stage serious problems can arise between client and IT professional, some of which may involve law suits, cost overruns, and broken relations between IT professional (and probably the company they work for).

Ethical Issues Encountered by IT Users

Software piracy:

These days software piracy is rampant. And this phenomenon isn’t just in the U.S, it’s all over the world. IT users and production teams and companies have to deal with the repercussions of this. Unfortunately, software users do to. Software piracy causes the software company to lose money, a lot of money. That loss of money is generally passed onto the consumers. If it weren’t the company would have a hard time surviving. This loss of revenue by the company also causes jobs as companies have to cut costs to deal with the loss. So, while free stuff is great, it is costing more than many downloaders known.

Another alarming fact is that many IT professionals are guilty of software piracy. This can include copying a program and taking it home to install on a home computer or copying a file and selling it to others. One great way to distinguish whether or not an individual is guilty of software piracy is whether or not an additional license was acquired for the software. If it was not, the individual is guilty of software piracy. Unfortunately, this happens far too often in corporate settings. Companies that either are guilty of piracy, or have employees who are, are subject to lawsuits and hefty fines that are often far more expensive than simply acquiring the license from the start.

Disclosing company/employee information:

There are two different forms of information that are a strict violation of law and of company policy to disclose. Information can either be classified under “confidential” or “private.” Disclosing private information regarding company employees is a violation of worker privacy and can result in lawsuits against both the company and the individual. Disclosure of confidential company information can result in a loss of competitive edge for the company, and a monetary loss.

Use of company resources for unrelated business:

It is the employees job to respect and use the companies property with respect. Inappropriate use of company resources include surfing the web, participating in chat rooms or IM conversations, playing computer games (online or otherwise), and viewing pornographic material on company computers. Offences in these areas can lead to loss of productivity and possibly even serious law suits. Pornography and racially or sexually motivated jokes and conversations either through company e-mail, IM, or other communications, can lead to a law racial or sexual harassment lawsuits and the firing of the employee.

Protecting IT Projects Against Legal Suits

Guidelines/Expectations:

Setting clear and concise guidelines and expectations between client(s) and IT professional is extremely important. Both sides need to know what needs to be done and when they need to be done. Both sides need to have a hard copy of the guidelines and expectations, and both should be present should any changes be necessary.

Do not engage in unprofessional (out of work) relationship with client:

Both sides of an agreement need to stick to business and engage in business only meetings, and not accept personal favors, gifts, or anything else that can put either the company, the client, or the individual IT professional in jeopardy.

Review contract and ethical obligations with client:

This is sort of along the same lines as the guidelines and expectations, but with subtle differences, the main one being that it is an actual legally binding contract. The IT professional needs to give a hard copy of the contract to the client. The contract needs to be reviewed in the presence of the IT professional and the client, and both need to sign it with the other as a witness. This can help to eliminate misunderstandings and violations on either side.

Provide information on the company: The IT professional needs to provide company information and company history. Additionally, the IT professional should provide information such as the board of directors contact information, paperwork, website, and any company or individual accreditations that the client may ask for before or after the IT professional puts the idea of seeing them forward.

Overall, both client and IT professional need to be as educated about the project, expectations, obligations, deadlines, costs, and the like, at all times. Communications needs to be clear and open so that the client understands any and all information given to them regarding the project and possible problems. Lack of communication by one side or another is a major cause for lawsuits of misrepresentation, and breaches of contract.