Welcome Readers, I will be describing four ethical issues that arise when storing electronic information about people. When storing electronic information about people there are a lot of ethical issues that could arise. Some of these consist of confidentiality, privacy, freedom, and data ownership. First, Confidentiality “Ensures that the necessary level of secrecy is enforced at each junction of data processing and prevents unauthorized disclosure. This level of confidentiality should prevail while data resides on systems and devices within the network, as it is transmitted and once it reaches its destination.” Second, Privacy “is the right to be let alone, or freedom from interference or intrusion.” Third, Freedom is “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.” Lastly, Data ownership “both the possession of and responsibility for information.” Organizations that store privileged information could easily run into these issues because of the advancements in cybersecurity technology. Hackers can get unauthorized access to a system or network and steal individuals’ personal data. This idea would be a misuse of the person’s confidential information. It would lead to the organization breaking confidentiality because the attacker can access information like name, address, banking and credit card information, medical records, and a lot of other confidential data. This issue also leads to privacy because now the attackers can steal or modify the individuals’ classified data. They could use this to steal their identity, or many other horrible things to cause them harm. It breaks the trust between an individual and an organization. Freedom is a massive thing in society and storing confidential information that people upload onto their systems is taking away their freedom. People should have the right to decide who can and cannot see or access their personal data but with organizations doing this they take away that right.

Work cited:

https://iapp.org/about/what-is-privacy/

https://ori.hhs.gov/education/products/n_illinois_u/datamanagement/dotopic.html#:~:text=Data%20Ownership,of%20and%20responsibility%20for%20information.&text=The%20control%20of%20information%20includes,others%20(Loshin%2C%202002).