Table of Contents
Task 1: Argument Visualization
Task 1: Argument Visualization
Figure. Argument Visualization of Contact Tracing Apps Struggle to be both effective and private.
Task 2
Introduction
Ethics is a part of life and an organization in order to be effective and honest to the nature of living. The challenges that are faced in the actions that are opposed to the nature could be easily avoided here. The ethics should be followed in every action that is performed in day to day life. The case study that has been selected here for the discussion is Contact Tracing Apps Struggle to be both effective and private. This is because of the reason that there are several challenges that are occurred in the modern mobile applications where the private and the financial information of the users are theft in higher numbers. In order to study the ethical as well as unethical activities in the mobile applications, the tracing of the user for identifying the COVID-19 has been selected. The argument visualization here shows the four types of theories that will be paving the way for clear understanding the various ethical actions and its consequences. The following report will discuss in detail about the theories in respect to the selected case study along with the recommendations for it.
Utilitarianism Theory
The utilitarianism theory is the branch of ethical theory where it will be looking for the goodness that will be the outcome of an action. This theory will be looking for the result of the action irrespective of the work that has been done and its ethical behavior. It can be understood from the case study that the mobile applications that are developed in the recent for identifying and tracing the patients who are affected with the COVID-19. Here, the details of the patients will be collected and hence there are chances that the private data as well as the financial data of the users will be highly affected (R M Hare, 1982). The data will be collected in order to effectively trace the health and the medication details of the users. With the help of this, the challenges in the increasing pandemic disease could be avoided since the patients will be isolated to avoid in contact with the other patients. Thus, the outcome of the action is focused on preventing the user from spreading of the coronavirus. As per the theory, the action may have serious consequences like the misuse of the data, loss of privacy and the financial data. But, the spread of the virus in the society could be avoided by intimating the patients where they are walked and visited. The users can then make necessary tests and can isolate to protect themselves and from spreading of the virus.
It could thus be recommended that the outcomes of the application should be improved irrespective of the actions that are making in the application. As per the utilitarianism theory, it is also recommended that to focus on the outcomes that should be hiding the negative impacts that are arise from it. The effectiveness of the application will be the required by the utilitarianism in order to avoid the issues from it. It is also to be noted that the outcomes from the application should not be unethical and it should be providing the effective welfare for the users who are using it. There should be more concentration on the application to improve the accuracy and the information that could be generated regarding the COVID-19 disease. Thus, it is concluded that as per utilitarianism (Stuart Mill J, 2015)theory that there will be the effective outcomes with the loss of privacy as well as security issues.
Deontology Theory
As per this theory, the action that is done should be analyzed based on its right or wrong. The action will be analyzed based on the set of rules that are framed and states as good or bad. The theory while relating to the case study, it is understood that the actions by the mobile application developers are not good since they are collecting private and health information of the users and not securing in right way. The security and privacy are not employed by the application and hence there are chances of security attacks that will steal the information of the users and can be used for various unethical activities. The data that are not protected are not fair as per deontology ethical theory. The challenges that could be faced will be higher due to this security issues and privacy issues. In order to protect from these consequences, proper security mechanisms should be employed. For example, the data that are collected are used with the various outside contractors in order to track their location, activities in order to intimate them to the other users who are nearby them. This will be highly helpful in the fact that users can improve their social distancing and can avoid the spread of the virus, but the privacy is not attained since information users will be published and can cause serious issues (McNaughton D, 2005).
The issues that are faced due to this should be avoided by focusing on improving the privacy of the data of the users along with the effectiveness of the application. The security should be improved in order to effectively improve the privacy and the other issues for the data that are collected from the users of the application. It is also recommended that the challenges that are discussed could be avoided with the help of this security improvement. The deontology could be made once when the loss of privacy and other issues to the users could be rectified. The effectiveness of the application is considered to be good but there are issues in it and this will also affect the wellness of the people and cause loss (The Ethics Centre, 2016). This also causes reputation loss to the application developers as well as the government since it is the prime duty of the government to secure the data of the citizens.
Contract Theory
Contract theory describes that some people live in society in means of the better agreement from the government side in giving the personal details for the contact tracing application which established some moral and political rules on the behaviors. Many people thought of believe in the contract theory and given the details and many personal information to the developers, through which the morally is one of the choice towards it and divine is not required in it (Smith S A, 1993). The government from South Korean has given the contact tracer access to more information sources, which includes the footage data from the security cameras, data form mobile station, transaction history from credit card this leads to some issues and it has not included the ethics of the contract in this case, because some of the footage of data was misplaced between the other countries and attackers took the data very quickly from the main sources. To find the hotspot of the COVID-19 affected people the management of the mobile application will access the personal location from the users mobile and that was not properly initiated and has led to the privacy issues ethically.
Some countries like South Korea’s mobile tracing application determines to share the patients detail publically which is the most faced issues to all the user of mobile application and this has the largest ethical issue. Some of the data was misused through application data like demographics, information about the infection, and travel logs were not managed as it was said to the users, hence this approach has seriously leads to the privacy issues through which the travel logs will let everyone to know about others living location and personal works and this could not be managed through the developers effectively (Weale A, 2020). The public health authorities from the Europe is trying to shift the health record managing system from sharing it through the public and still it is not taken the full work towards those progress. To get rid of these issues the developers of the tracing mobile application has to induce still more effective technical algorithms and cloud based storing system which will effectively and securely store the patient’s details. When proper accessing method is implemented towards the application then the people from the public would access the application still better in following up the ethics and if the contract ethic law is initiated as said it gives the full hope to all the mobile users in accessing the application.
Virtue Theory
The theory of the virtue resembles the honest towards any kinds of the work or progress, it basically tries to find the more emphasizes towards the ethic law, moral, in means towards the COVID-19 tracing application for following up the rules and regulations in it. As said the tracing application for the COVID-19 affected people is not effective and ethically privacy. There are many privacy issues emerged from the side of developers the users of the application has lost the honest in using the application privately since the government has lost the privacy of users data through assessing the application. The alert system is made to the people when some disease is diagnosed from the users through the sensors, here the alert system would help other people in not affecting the diseases easily.
Through the online survey from Americans, have opened that the 71 percentage of people is not ready to use the COVID contact tracing application since the software system is not fully secured and the users are emerged to loss their contacts publically. As the respondents cited that the privacy places the main concerns, whereas the virtue ethics is not managed through the both governments and developers of the tracing application. Sometimes the data are driven through the Bluetooth, which leads to the new forms of surveillance. This data access through the Bluetooth were not normal towards the ethics, functions are possessed technically difficult. Many privacy issues are directly affected the user of the mobile application, the other ethically evolved issue from the side of users is, some variation in the antenna configuration for users of more than thousands android phones (Dunnington K, 2018). The signal strength is lost, which might slow down in accessing the people from the disease affection and the battery would dry down easily due to the short listening periods. The contact tracing application suffers generally through many private issues and proper ethics are not emerged towards these areas, people would not opt this application until the public-health strategy hope to gain the security safe towards the data. To overcome some issues and effective managing of the contact tracing application, the virtue theory has to be inserted or managed properly by the developers in making all the users of the application contacts are being safe in the security avoidance concerns (E Sosa, 2018). The contacts accessed from the users must be protected from various illness activities and users must be free and happy to use the contact tracing application.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it is understood that there are several challenges that are available in the safety, security and the privacy of the users of the mobile applications that are developed. In order to effectively work with it, all the four ethical theories have to be followed. As per the utilitarianism theory, the outcome of the application is good and hence it could be allowed to be providing essential services to avoid the spread of the viruses. The deontology shows that there are privacy issues that may result in various consequences due the loss of the information. The contract theory addresses that the breach in the contract between the user and the application developer due to the loss of private information. The virtue theory states that the application is not honest to the users since the data will be used by the other users for locating them and this will be disgusting for the user affected with the coronavirus. Thus, in this case satisfying all the four theories are not possible and hence most important theories could be followed in order to follow the compliances of the government.
References
Dunnington, K. (2018). Conclusion. Humility, Pride, and Christian Virtue Theory, 157-164. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198818397.003.0008
The Ethics Centre. (2016, February 18). Ethics explainer: What is deontology? - The ethics centre. THE ETHICS CENTRE. https://ethics.org.au/ethics-explainer-deontology/
Hare, R. M. (1982). Ethical theory and utilitarianism. Utilitarianism and Beyond, 23-38. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511611964.003
McNaughton, D., & Rawling, P. (2005). Deontology. The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory, 424-458. https://doi.org/10.1093/0195147790.003.0016
Smith, S. A. (1993). What is contract theory? Contract Theory, 3-38. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198765615.003.0001
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Stuart Mill, J. (2015). What utilitarianism is. On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Other Essays. https://doi.org/10.1093/owc/9780199670802.003.0009
Weale, A. (2020). Social contract as domination. Modern Social Contract Theory, 387-402. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198853541.003.0017