Question

Explain briefly the 4 main threats to information privacy. What are cookies and what should individuals do about them. Describe the PLUS approach to ethical decision making.

Answer 1

The four main threats to information privacy:

1) Theft of personal information through websites by leakage of information from database.

2) Use of cookies to track online behaviour.

3) Keyboard tracker virus or software which can be installed on the computer and can steal keystrokes to make meaningful information.

4) Another threat is that webcam or computer microphone could be hacked to track personal activity.

Cookies are elements which are used by websites to store certain things in the browser that can track user activity. Individuals should not store cookies of all websites as that can compromise security of the user. They should verify the authenticity and nature of cookies before allowing them to get stored in the computer.

The PLUS approach tells us that all decisions should be filtered on the parameters of Policies, Legal, Universal and Self.

So a decision should satisfy the organizational policy, be legal and should be aligned with universally accepted rules. Also it should be accepted to the self as being a righteous decision