GIS REPORT

GIS Report

GIS Report

Introduction

New technology new ethical dilemmas new computer technologies for gathering, storing, manipulating, and communicating data are revolutionizing the use and spread of information. Along the way, they are also creating ethical dilemmas. The speed and efficiency of information systems, which include local and global networks, databases, and programs for processing information, force people to confront entirely new rights and responsibilities in their use of information and to reconsider standards of conduct shaped before the advent of computers.

Information is a source of power and, increasingly, the key to prosperity among those with access to it. Consequently, developments in information systems also involve social and political relationships-- and so make ethical considerations in how information is used all the more important. systems now reach into all levels of government, into the workplace, and into private lives to such an extent they affect that even people without access to these systems in significant ways.

New ethical and legal decisions are necessary to balance the needs and rights of everyone.( Leivick, 1999, 25)

Ethics Fill the Gap as Legal Decisions Lag Behind Technology As in other new technological arenas, legal decisions lag behind technical developments. Ethics fill the gap as people negotiate how use of information should proceed. The following notes define the broad ethical issues now being negotiated.

Since laws deciding some aspects of these issues have been made, these notes should be read in conjunction with Legal Issues in Information Systems. (Selim,1999, 146)

Discussion

Ethical Issues Specific to Information Systems Ethics include moral choices made by individuals in relation to the rest of the community, standards of acceptable behavior, and rules governing members of a profession. The broad issues relating to information systems include control of and access to information, privacy and misuse of data, and international considerations. All of these extend to networks, databases, and, more specifically, to geographic information systems. Specific problems within each of the three areas, however, require slightly different kinds of ethical decisions. Networks, information systems in general, and geographic information systems in particular are discussed separately below.

2. Networks Definition of Network Any set of computers able to communicate with one another constitutes a network. Some networks are contained within institutions or companies, enabling people within a single organization to communicate ally. Many of these small systems are also hooked into other organizations' computers. Thousands of such networks collectively form the Internet. Much of the following discussion has been formed with the Internet in mind, but the issues raised may be applied to smaller networks as well.( Leivick, 1999, 27)

For the most part, information commonly and freely available from U.S. periodicals, books, conferences, libraries, or university courses falls under general license, which means it may be transferred to other countries without further permission. What is restricted in information, which may include data, software, machine readable code, encryption code, and so on, is more difficult to define. The following examples, though hardly comprehensive, illustrate some of the difficulties encountered when export laws are applied to ...