IT and Ethics: What does it mean for you and your organization

About the event

What are ethics and why are they relevant in the IT field? Why is a code of ethics important to us personally and to our organizations? How do you develop and maintain an ethical code for the use of Information Technology in an organization? These are just some of the questions we will consider at the next SIM Portland meeting. Everyone is familiar with the concept of medical ethics and the Hippocratic Oath, “First do no harm.” Ethics are a set of mutually agreed upon rules that encompass the personal and shared standards of behavior expected by a group of people, typically within a given profession. There are now ethical investments and mutual funds that hold to certain principles when selecting companies to invest in. 

Information Technology is advancing at an ever increasing rate, and is having an increasing impact on our lives. The recent Facebook / Cambridge Analytica scandal demonstrated what can happen in organizations when there is no ethical grounding, and decisions are simply left up to the bottom line, or market forces. Join host, and incoming SIM-Portland President, Richard Appleyard for the February Chapter meeting where he will share his ideas and facilitate discussion around embracing more formal ethical standards with in the IT management profession. Come and be part of the process to discover what this means to you, to your colleagues and how we might develop a Code of Ethics at the SIM Portland chapter. 

Learning & Event Objectives: 

+ Review & discuss ethics, its history and relevance to the field of IT

+ Review ethical frameworks and discuss which apply to IT

+ Consider the creation of a SIM-Portland Working Group to develop a Code of Ethics for the Chapter

Speaker 

Richard is a seasoned Technology Leader in IT Operations, Application Development & Web Management, with a foundation in Informatics Research. He is currently the Deputy CIO and Applications Development Manager at the Oregon Secretary of State. In addition to assisting the CIO, he is responsible for software development team that manages a portfolio of applications for the different SOS divisions; Elections, Corporation, Audits and Archives as well as Business Services. He is the President-elect for the Society of Information Management Portland Chapter and currently planning his agenda for his April 2020-2022 tenure.

Richard is an emerging Technology Ethicist and IT Futurist with a passion for being more thoughtful with how IT is implemented. He is a proponent of Holistic Technology Management that looks for the potential "butterfly effect,” and the unseen opportunities and unintended consequences of today's technology advances. Richard has a Bachelors in Chemistry from the University of Oxford, a PhD in Biochemistry / Biophysics from Washington State University and completed a Post-doctorate in Medical Informatics (Information and Data Science) at Oregon Health and Science University where he focused on Consumer Health Informatics and the usability of patient information systems. 

Human(e) Technology- rebooting the EnablingIT blog (formerly ModCons blog)

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

I have recently been doing some leadership work, reviewing and defining my Big Why, Vision and Passions that I bring to my life and work. This brought me to consider why I do what I do...without really considering it until now. Is work just a paycheck, or is there something more? Am I driven by some underlying or hidden cause?

I work in IT or Information Technology. Basically the management of computer systems that support our daily lives, work and home, professional and personal, individually and our communities. The basic goal or drive is to make our lives easier by allowing computing machines to do the work. A computer system should always have a positive impact to the bottom line- how much we are able to achieve. And in our increasingly complex worlds with the growth in population, and size of our communities and cities, it should allow us to manage the resources and needs efficiently, effectively and equitably.

Unfortunately, within our societies and communities, we often allow technology to be the goal, rather than the humans that we are, and that the technology serves. It’s easily done. All to easily done. Our societies have setup operating models that once seemed to make sense, at least in an emerging world where resources are plentiful (seemingly unlimited) and the needs (and number of humans) are relatively small. Unfortunately as the human race has grown to the point (7.5 billion and counting... https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/) that it is impacting the entire planet (resources are now limited), these operating models are no longer sustainable. Well, they never were sustainable. It just didn’t matter until now. The capitalist, corporations, consumerism of sales and services, feeding every single whim of the individual regardless of the impact has led to a massive disconnect to our way of living from our environment and planet.

My interest and passion is the creation and adoption of “Human(e) Technology.” Technology that supports us as humans, but does not take away from our human-ness. Technology that removes our impact on the planet (zero footprint) and allows us to live in harmony with the environment and each other. Unfortunately, we cannot go back to our agrarian or hunter-gather beginnings as there are just too many of us now. There are others that are taking on this cause (Douglas Ruskoff’s Team Human, https://teamhuman.fm/), and I would look to engage and promote those humans that are out to humane-ify our technological futures.

Frustrations with ModCons is now Human(e) Technology

Was,

Frustrations with ModCons

A general vent on modern conveniences (modcons) and, more often than not, the usability of modern technology.

Now,

Human(e) Technology

Standing for technology that supports us as humans, but does not take away from our human-ness.

Smart Cities - Where are they now?

I have become highly interested in Smart City technology. Not just because of the potential for improvement in the efficiency and management of public resources and services. But because we are at the emergence of another transformation in technology. Another jump in capability, and with it the disruption of the status quo. The negation and rapid decline of old, established business models and the appearance, and rapid adoption of new ones. And I am fascinated by the public opinion, policy and ethical implications around where this will take us.

This is not unlike the emergence of the Web in the mid-90s which disrupted the publishing and media industries and retails sales business model. The tail end of this is still being played out today with large established retailers going by the wayside. Shopping malls have become ghost towns. Amazon rules, and continues to dominate, the online retail space.

Today the emerging tech platforms are the Internet of Things ("wearable web servers") and the miniaturization of technology into the palm of our hand, coupled with the continued advances in ultra-high speed wireless networks and cloud computing, will have a profound effect on our environment at home, in our communities and in our economies and daily lives. There are huge possibilities in better management of our environments, as well as huge risks as Internet access becomes ubiquitous - everywhere and everything.

In recent years, Smart Cities programs and projects have been started all over the world. In the US, a Smart Cities Initiative was officially launched under the Obama administration in 2015, including some allocation of Federal research funding of projects in areas including public safety/ emergency response, transportation, energy efficient/ low emission, environmental monitoring, open public data, and public/private partnerships. But Smart Cities projects and initiatives have been going on since the early 2010s.

The City of Portland where I live has a Smart Cities Initiative and is proposing a number of pilot projects to research, test and evaluate the application of emerging technology. In transportation, the development of self driving features and the goal of autonomous vehicles will have a profound effect on the local environment and economy. Once cars are autonomous, you don't need to park. An autonomous vehicle acts like a chauffeur driven car. Once you are dropped off, it can drive itself somewhere else. Return home, or perhaps even go out and "work" by providing car share rides to other people. The parking business is huge, occupying a lot of space within city limits, and particularly within core, downtown areas. Both private (parking garages) and public (street parking) derive revenue and provide jobs to monitor and maintain these facilities. Technology has certainly already impacted the jobs in these businesses with parking attendants/cashiers being replaced by kiosks. But autonomous vehicles will basically put these businesses out of business. And the City? Currently the City derives a lot of revenue from parking. Once this revenue begins to dry up, what will replace it?

Autonomous vehicles will also impact the auto-industry. Car ownership has been the bedrock of American society since the 1950s, and it is still a primary way that people commute, and also get around town to meetings, events, visit friends and family. However, it is horribly inefficient. Many families have multiple cars, which predominantly sit in the driveway at home or in parking lots. 99% of the time. Once we have autonomous vehicles, they can be put to work, rather than have them sitting around. Once everyone is sharing their cars, the cost of ride sharing plummets (supply and demand). Once cars use alternate energy (electric and related electricity generating technology), they can be refueled off alternative grids. It is estimated that we have 8-12 times the number of vehicles in circulation than we need to meet our transportation requirements. The need to purchase cars will become obsolete. Car companies already lease cars as an alternative to purchasing. Car sharing programs like Car2Go and ZipCars already provide on demand renting of cars. A logical extension of this is that in the future car manufacturers or car sharing companies will have fleets of autonomous cars that you can simply hail on demand.

Autonomous vehicles will also impact the shipping and trucking industry which is currently a huge employer. Self driving trucks can drive longer and further without the need for sleep. For a while, we may need an operator in the truck in case of issues, but eventually even this will not be necessary. What will happen to all these employees? Where will they get new work. Couple that with the drone and UAV developments that even commercial TV and movies have portrayed taking over the delivery of physical items, and eventually people, it is going to look a whole lot like Marty McFlys future, even though it will be a little later than October 2015.

Which brings me back to my interest in all this. Basically, we need to be doing the research and planning for this now. Technology has a habit of developing regardless of intent, and if we are not thoughtful about the individual decisions we make, and the path that we set ourselves on, we could end up in a future that we will feel we did not choose or want. We have to think holistically, and look at the broader ramifications. Robots have been predicted and shown to replace human jobs for years. Whilst there will be a need for humans to work alongside, and to support and repair robots, these jobs will be a minute fraction of the jobs that will be lost. Japan realized this problem already, and also the impact on the new business model that made people unemployed. Basically, that you have to be careful not to cut off the hand that feeds you. If people do not have jobs, and well paying jobs, they will be unable to afford all the products that the robots are making. And the factories will be shutdown. So at the same time we are switching to these new business models and economies, we need to be thinking about the humans involved, the potential impacts, and how to mitigate or prepare for them. You need a Holistic Technology Guru!

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should...or at the very least you need to think it through first!

But the crowning glory of my technology and travel experience had to be hiring/ renting a car in the UK.

Driving in the UK is now apparently so dangerous, that my parents automobile insurance can no longer cover non-resident UK citizens! I find it absolutely fascinating that I am no longer allowed to drive their car with permission, even though I am a direct relation, hold a current UK drivers license, and am an experienced driver (>30 years). I could not even drive my father home from the airport to save him driving both ways. It would seem that I have been driving too long on the wrong side of the road, in a third world country (USA) that has no drivers licensing and non existent traffic laws. Of course, I am sure my parents could have paid more money to add additional coverage to their insurance. And maybe, this new rule was due to people registering and insuring their cars through their parents at a cheaper senior citizen rate. But I digress...

With Josephine in high school, she has begun to seriously consider universities and colleges that she would like to attend. Being an Oxford man (alumnus), I wanted to be sure to tour some of the colleges and drop by the admissions office while we were in the UK. We also has some friends setup a tour of the Other Place (Cambridge) with someone who teaches music and has "access," i.e., knows the porters and college staff. So we rented a car from Enterprise in Canterbury after we got back from Paris. The pickup process and paperwork was standard, nothing weird from technology standpoint, except for a little statement in the contract that leasees were responsible for any tickets or infractions gained whilst driving the car. Makes sense. Same anywhere in the world really. It did make me think though as I know that the UK make wide use of speed cameras and mailing speeding tickets to the registered owner of the car, in this case Enterprise, and then they would forward the ticket with a £35 administrative fee. So I took careful note of this, and proceed to drive the car very carefully up to Cambridge.

The obvious route from my parents is around the M25 London Orbital motorway (freeway), also affectinately referred to as the "Jam Doughnut" due to the regularity with which it gets backed up with traffic. The eastern section has to cross the Thames estuary at Dartford. For the longest time there was a 4 lane Dartford tunnel, and more recently a suspension bridge called the Dartford crossing, which allows another 4 lanes clockwise, to the tunnels 4 lanes counter-clockwise. A toll has been in place pretty much forever, and used to involve toll booths where you threw in your couple of quid (£1-2, $2-3). When we crossed this year, the booths were gone! Yay! No more tolls? Err, not so fast. A sign to the side of the road informed drivers to go online to dart.com to pay. £2.50 for a car. Failure to do so would result in enforcement and fines. Fortunately, I knew what was going on, and logged on once we got to our friends house and paid using my debit card. The website correctly identified the number plate and I paid the £2.50. I also got a receipt for the payment indicating the date and time. So I thought all was good, being responsible for any charges while renting the car.

You can imagine my surprise when three weeks later a received a DART violation letter from Enterprise, and notification of a £35 fee to my credit card per the terms of the rental agreement. I called DART and requested clarification. They explained that while I had paid, it was possible that my payment had been applied to an outstanding toll charge on an earlier day. I was directed to completed on contestation form online and provide proof of payment, which I did. I am still trying to clear things up with Enterprise. 

So it would appear that some high tech company sold the British government on yet another application of number plate recognition. I am sure that they extolled the reduction in peak use congestion around the old coin toll booths, and the easy and efficiency of digital financial transactions. Unfortunately, according to my parents, the new DART charge has been an operational disaster and public relations nightmare. It has created a huge volume of customer service inquiries, complaints, fee and fine corrections in addition to the enforcement work. All this extra work was overlooked due to poor research and analysis before implementation. I was then informed that processing my DART contestation could now take up to 48 days, up from the original 30 days. I also noticed on the drive that there were no signs with alternate languages for foreign visitors and tourists who would not have a clue about the toll. And I am not even sure whether DART would have access to other countries drivers license information to know who to send the letters and fines to. 

I would love to see the hidden administration burden and cost the new DART system has created that was never included in the original business case. And if that could well have changed, or at least influenced, the decision if it had been known up front. 

That's a really cool use of technology...but what's going on behind the curtain?

The next experience with modern technology in the UK was at the Heathrow car park/ parking garage. My father was at the airport to meet us. We came into the new Terminal 2 with a very swish, clean and efficient experience through to baggage claim. We then made our way to the car. I noticed that they have space monitoring (IR-motion sensors over every parking spot). That's pretty standard. We have had the same technology in the Portland, Oregon airport for longer than Heathrow. This allows you instantly know how many spaces are available and where. The sensors have a visible light that glows red when occupied and green when available. Reader boards as you drive in tell you the number of spaces available on each floor.

The difference at Heathrow? They have installed digital cameras pointing at every parking slot, and these are setup to do number plate recognition. Outside the elevator is a little computer kiosk with a sign "Locate your car." Type in your number plate, and the kiosk will find your car, show you a picture and direct you to it!  Pretty cool idea. No idea how well it works, but I overheard people in the car park who were also pretty impressed by the service.

I would seem though that the real reason for the technology is tracking payment. The system can monitors who has paid and not paid digitally. When you go to the pay booth/ kiosk, you enter your license plate, it shows you a picture and you pay for your parking. No need to display a ticket in your window any more. And the system knows when you arrived and when you left. No need to have any poorly paid meter maids or parking enforcement employees. Park and don't pay? The system will use your car's number plate to access your address, and send you a parking fine/ violation in the mail.

I saw this technology in use all over the UK. In other pay and display car parks (Oxford Park & Ride), and the City of London uses license plate recognition to enforce its Congestion Fee, which is assessed on all vehicles going in the center of London during peak hours (mainly day time).

Not sure if any of the public had any concerns about the privacy implications. My first thought was who gets access to this data, and why? The UK is the most digital and CCTV monitored population in the world. And it seems to be getting worse. Austerity measures after the global recession have resulted in huge cuts to government services and programs. There are fewer police to enforce the laws and consequently an ever increasing reliance on technology to do the work. Police departments now have technicians sitting in control centers watching hundreds of video feeds looking for anything that warrents sending a car. If this sounds Orwellian to you, then you are of the same mind as me. Don't know Orwellian? Download "1984" by George Orwell and read it!

Ultimately the use of number plate reading technology in car parks will become common place where the business can justify the cost, and the cost continues to drop. Unfortunately in this case it means laying off (or reassigning) people checking parking stickers. But there will be an additional administrative cost dealing with customer service complaints and corrections where the technology misses the mark. Where the technology works well, the public will accept it. Of course the converse is also true and leads to public outrage. I will cover a "fail" example next.

Look before you leap...or when implementing new technology, test, test,test!

My recent trip to back to the UK (December 2015) was an interesting technology user experience. I currently live in the USA, on the West Coast in Portland, Oregon. I work in Information Technology, or IT as a Business Technology Manager within the City of Portland. So working in the public sector, I am always on the look out for great and effective uses of technology as I travel around, live, play and work. So my latest trip back to the British Isles, and a side trip over to Paris, France was no exception. The British and American civilizations are very comparable in their use of technology, however there are very interesting differences in their adoption and application.

So the first experience when traveling is the airline check-in, and the industry move to computer kiosks rather than check-in agents. This move has been going on for some time, so the airlines have had plenty of opportunity to field test and make improvements to their online website and physical kiosk check-in. But for some reason for me, traveling internationally causes these to error out pretty much all the time. I think it is the need to have/scan passports, and all the additional information and security that occurs for international travel. And I have a green card which probably the last straw that throws the system. I never have a problem with domestic travel where my credit card and driver's license work just fine. Passports now have chips in them but the airlines either don't have access to them, or need to upgrade all their equipment in order to read the chips.

No real difference here between the US and UK check in other than the fact that UK airport and airline staff don't want to believe that the kiosk check-in doesn't work, almost yelling at me when I try to locate and walk over to a manned desk to get assistance. US staff still seem better trained in customer service and are more helpful when you have problems with the machines.

Immigration and border control still have the all too familiar long lines/ queues, and have relied on 'real' immigrant officers. Though recently, I have seen the move to technology in this area. The UK has some unmanned immigration stations for British passport holders who have chip enabled passports. You place your passport on a 'reader' and then look into a camera. First time I used it, I stood for ages before it let me through. It had me worried for a bit. I can only assume that it was creating an entry for me in the 'digital' tracking database, and possibly doing face recognition and confirmation with my stored image. Your travel group all needs to have the upgraded passports to use this, so since I do not travel alone very much, I have not used it much.

The US has begun to use kiosk technology for immigration. I have seen a couple of 'voluntary' and 'fast pass' kiosks in recent years, obviously doing some early testing. On our last trip through Vancouver BC (which has a US immigration presence for flights to the US), we used kiosks that collect the same information as you provide on a US Landing Card, and you use the machine as a family unit. This seemed to be a pilot installation and there were staff helping people use the machines. My wife and daughter were successful, but I was rejected after three attempts. The flash on the camera was incorrectly adjusted, and over-exposing everyone's faces. The machine was obviously trying to do face recognition but it was failing due to the poor photo quality. Successful people collected a receipt from the machine (in place of your landing card), but either way you were still interviewed by an immigration officer. Whilst it was frustrating dealing with the pilot kiosks, I applaud the US immigration for testing the technology out, and getting feedback, rather than rushing to implement fully unmanned immigration processing. The US continues to use more biometrics on Resident Aliens and tourist visitors collecting finger prints and a photo at immigration.

More to come on my travels. Up next,

"That's a really cool use of technology...but what's going on behind the curtain?"