Information Governance: An Ethical Perspective

Summary

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The mark of any ethical and caring society may be seen in the way in which it protects its citizen's human rights, privacy and their right to access personal data and information. With the growing use of technology the challenge to maintain and deliver information in an ethical and efficient manner raises a number of core questions for the UK. Although the tools and technology for creating, processing, distributing and storing information are constantly being improved, they are still far from perfect and maintaining the integrity and availability of different versions of an electronic document or database is problematic. When privacy is protected it can be socially useful, encouraging honesty, risk-taking, experimentation and creativity: when it's not the antithesis applies. Generally speaking two important social forces serve to keep organisations ethical: they are the law and the market. Both are to some degree inadequate.

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Extract

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Information Governance: An Ethical Perspective

"A man without privacy is a man without dignity; the fear that Big Brother is watching and listening threatens the freedom of the individual no less than the prison bars"

Professor Zelman Cowen, 1969, 'The Private Man', Boyer Lecture

A recent news item warned that Britain is in danger of "sleepwalking into a surveillance society". Almost without knowing it, the UK is stumbling into an "East German, Stasistyle" snooping culture, in which the State is entitled to compile a detailed dossier on each and every citizen[1]. The Government'...

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