Moral Issues

The rapid development of technologies in information society reveals great number of ″white spots″ in existing legislations. New temptations and dilemmas appear in contacts in cyberspace and as it’s different of personal intercourse, many people do not have clear idea for the results of their actions in it. Ethics in the information society does not concern only individuals. Many organizations have not worked their own rules of conduct, which the employees and the firm as a whole should keep. The firm ethics includes policy activities and decisions that a firm undertakes to reach its organizational goals. Basic ethic organizing rules are:

ü Only authorized access to computer resources;

ü Respect to other people’s rights;

ü Confidentiality of the assigned information;

ü Every employee to use his/her knowledge and skills to inform society in all spheres of his/her competence;

ü Confirmation that the products of one’s work are used in a social responsible manner;

ü Not to use confidential or personal information for personal favour.

In the information society where much of the data is kept in enormous computer data bases containing personal information for the life of everyone individual /bank deposits, medical records, personal and real property and etc./ the information technologies allow unwanted break in, in the personal room of people. There are great number of still unsolved cases in respect of the right of personal inviolability, intellectual property, copyrights and etc.

Right to private lifeis an ethic right of individuals to be alone and to manage the information flow concerning them. Abreast of this individual right however there exist the right of organizations and governments that have undertaken a lot of responsibilities and are obliged to possess certain personal information. For example, the government is concerned for its citizens’ health and is obliged to know whether they suffer from infectious diseases; the companies need to know address, telephone number and personal interests of their clients to sell their product and services; banks have to know depositors’ incomes in order to grant credits and etc. How to defend citizens’ interests without breaking their right to private life? In many countries create laws for individual protection against encroachment on personal inviolability. In spite of that, in last 10 years many people feel unprotected and as a reason for that point computers. According to a survey among Americans, 79% are concerned for the right of private life, 76% – feel they do not control personal information and 67% – consider that in order to protect their right of private life in future computers must be limited (Loden, K.,1994) The information society, where the world is a ″global village″ interlaced in cable communication networks – physical cover of the virtual reality, could not be irresponsible for its young citizens who are ″bombard″ with every kind of information by traditional and new media. Children are the biggest fans and consumers of world information network – Internet. They are also the future inhabitants of digital ″global village″, where they will meet different cultures, customs and values. But they are also the most vulnerable citizens of the information society because of their informed characters and understanding for good and evil, because of their unformed value system. That’s why the easy access to pornographic information and plenty of violence examples pose the question of minor’s protection from inadequate information, but at the same time preservation of their right to access of information.

Accordingly the Convention on children’s rights, all governments should secure a free access of children and young people to information because of their social and cultural uniting, as parallel with that, they should guarantee their protection from harmful to them information on TV and radio programs, commercials and printed works, music, Internet and all media which in one or other way could manipulate, misinform or stimulate violence.