Ethics and Privacy Violation

Introduction

A couple of years ago when I discussed with my friend the prospects of relocating to Bangalore from Dubai, I was helped with solutions from someone who eavesdropped my conversation. It was Facebook and Google on my phone that posted ads of cheap tickets to Bangalore, home-stays that I could rent out in the city, with specifics that matched my requirements. It was definitely convenient to find what I needed, but I was startled with the thought of someone secretly listening to me. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate my views on how users of social networking sites and phone applications such as voice assistants violate privacy rights of consumers for online advertising and or technology development. This report describes the recent issues of consumer privacy invasions of the social media followed by its impact on the stakeholders. Next, the paper provides recommendations followed by a conclusion.

Issues

Breaches and its effects’ overview

Facebook

In the recent years too many industries including SNWs, banking, healthcare, airlines, etcetera, have suffered several severe breaches on the world wide web. Keach (2018) reported one of the worst data breach of users by a company called Cambridge Analytica (CA), a data analysis company that helps businesses change audience behavior, which harvested more than 50 million Facebook users’ data to create psychographic profiles to influence both the Brexit campaign and to help Trump get elected in the U.S. Presidential elections in 2016 (The Sun, para. 1-3). Lapowsky & Matsakis (2018) reported yet another unprecedented breach in September 2018 on Facebook that unlike CA’s scandal, in which a third-party company accessed users’ data erroneously by a legitimate quiz app, this time the vulnerability allowed the attackers to directly take over the users’ accounts (Wired, para. 1). In April 2019, another 540 million records of 146 gigabytes of Facebook user data that included user IDs, friends, location check-ins, photos and unprotected passwords of about 22,000 users, were exposed by a Mexico-based media company, according to Silverstein (CBC News, 2019, para. 1-3).

Others

Smart speakers and other smart web-enabled devices, apart from social media, had the potential to ‘passively listen’ and collect sensitive information. In the most recent article, Cuthbertson (2019) brought to light something so disturbing about Google Inc.’s Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri - two most popular voice assistants. Workers unveiled that in order to improve on their speech recognition quality, they overheard private encounters including drug deals and people having sex (Independent, para. 1). Apple suspended all Siri grading globally, Google withdrew its workers from listening and transcribing the conversations only in European Union (para. 5).

User data Privacy and its importance

As much as social media helps one connect with friends and family, or share interests with others, or keeps one updated with the latest news, it can also expose their safety to risk if they share their personal data. John Cassidy stated that “People like to express themselves, and are curious about other people. . .” (as cited in ). Marsoof (2011), rightly said that privacy and expression are oxymoronic. While social networking websites (SNWs) are platforms for expressing one’s personality, it also makes one’s privacy or personal details vulnerable to misuse (p. 110). Milne (2000) stated that privacy is a high profile public policy issue that affects both consumers and marketers. It is the Federal Trade Commissions that scrutinizes and reviews new privacy concerns emerged from online marketing (para. 1). It is significant to respect and protect these rights to privacy, according to the Immanuel Kant’s ‘Theory of Rights’ (Class studies).

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Impact of privacy breaches on Stakeholders

Every stakeholder including the consumers, employees, shareholders, company are all affected by breaches like these. Cyber thieves could target consumer’s data directly with viruses, for ransom, identity theft or indirectly by frauds or phishing. Sensitive information of employees is as valuable as that of consumers’. The cybercrime damage causes heavy monetary losses. For instance, Baig & Snider (2019) reported that Facebook was fined by the Federal Trade Commission with the largest penalty of $5 Billion USD for violating its consumer rights’ privacy in the Cambridge Analytica scandal (USA Today, para. 1). According to Ayers (2018), Facebook stock fell by 19% post the privacy scandals as it was concerned with advertising, political influence and privacy intrusion, all at once (para. 7). Marketers can manipulate people by studying the psychographics of the user data and the companies can face a public backlash. This not only massively hurts the company’s reputation, but also leads the users to lose trust on the company which is hard to achieve for any company after a breach (Dataconomy, 2018).

Recommendations

In this digital age, acting ethically has become as important as earning profits. Technology and innovation cannot grow faster than the legal system, as one cannot regulate something that does not exist. Raicu (2013) explained that when we try and determine the type of privacy and the extent to which we need it to be protected, we need to find a balance. A balance that may harm some individuals or groups, which may involve a choice to make between ‘good’ or ‘bad’ alternatives. A balance that is derived from the discipline of ethics (para. 7-9).

In a survey of 5000 U.S. consumers about this issue, 48% had concerns regarding the privacy intrusions (para. 15). To bring a balance between the choices of these people against the remaining 52%, one needs to consider the ethics of what they are doing despite it being technically legal. The rest of the world should also adopt General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), like the European Union, where consumers not only have the power to decide if their data can be collected and stored, but also gives them the authority to demand for their own data deletion as well (para. 12).

An integrated approach needs to be deployed to bring in the balance to ensure that everyone’s right is protected according to Bentham’s system as advocated by John Stewart Mill, according to Schefczyk (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). With the advent of technology, conflicts related to privacy protection are inevitable. However, Habermas (1983) and Steinmann & Lohr (1994) advised that discourse ethics be deployed for the peaceful settlement of these conflicts (as cited in class PPT).

Conclusion

Every company should first take into consideration the theory of utilitarianism and the ethics of rights of consumer privacy, and operate with transparency and integrity. Market researchers, marketers, technology developers should all know that they are bound to an ethical obligation while doing their job. Companies should create awareness amongst employees about Invasion of privacy and breaches of confidentiality, and their impacts, and should help them develop an ethical behavior by imbibing virtue ethics. After all, gaining back a lost reputation for the company would be dreadful.