Privacy Policy

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It has become a sad fact that in today’s society the truth is that the right to one’s privacy in the information technological world has simply become a joke. The growth of computers and information technology has raised new personal challenges in today’s world. All our personal information be it our health data, financial information, demographic information or our children’s information, has become digitized and is stored in the servers which are beyond our control. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the citizens from government intrusion when there is a “reasonable expectation of privacy” (Reynolds, 2010, p.117). According to the Fourth Amendment, the people have a right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search and seizures” (United States Senate, 1996). And this says nothing about the role of non-governmental institutions or the rights of private citizens in public spaces. With so much information which is collected, stored and analyzed about individuals, both in public and private databases, this topic touches off strong feelings and fears. It is vital that everyone as users of the internet, be it government, internet service providers, or individuals, need take the issue of internet privacy very seriously, while basing all actions towards the issue with the moral statement of, ‘Rights aren’t free, they’re earned’.

Reynolds (2010, p.117) defines information privacy as the combination of communications privacy and data privacy. Reynolds (2010, p. 118-144) further categorizes this discussion into the categories of -- financial data, electronic surveillance, health information, export of personal data, children’s personal data, and access to gover...

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...loration and public debate for years to come. The fact that there are people whose job is to ensure my right to privacy is an indication that while it may take some time, ethics related to technology are headed in the right direction.

Works Cited

IFSM304 (n.d.). Ethics in the Information Age. WebTycho Course Content: Module 3,

Retrieved on March 2, 2011 from “http://tychousa12.umuc.edu/cgi-

bin/id/CDI/index.pl?class=1102:IFSM304:5151&module=3&default=M3-

Module_3%2FS1-Overview.html

Moor, J (1985). What is Computer Ethics? Retrieved on March 1, 2010 from

“http://tychong.umuc.edu/tycho/IFSM/304/1102/5151/conference/launchconferencing. Tycho

Reynolds, G. (2010). Ethics in Information Technology, 3rd Edition. Boston: Centage.

Velasquez, M. (1992). Business ethics: Concepts and cases, 3rd Edition. Upper Saddle

River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

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