Just how ethical are you acting online?
Utilising many forms of technology across all areas of our lives, we soon develop both a professional and personal digital footprint. With this comes arising issues involving ethics, security, and privacy. Each factor contributes to the fact that Unethical activity may be one of the primary reasons that we have a lack of privacy and safety on the internet, but it also shows how there are ways we too can make it harder for this to be a heated topic. Hackers, thieves, and corporations are major individuals that led to this being such a big issue due to the invasion of privacy. But on the other hand, there are many solutions such as changing passwords, emails, etc that we can undertake to prevent this from happening but our ignorance and lack of knowledge make it a struggle to do these solutions.
Nowadays the majority of our internet usage is always under the watchful eye of hackers. Every day we employ the use of the internet but are unaware of who and what is watching us, even with this we are still forever saving our details to the internet making the goal of hackers retrieving our data a lot easier to reach. It is not hard for a student to act unethically with their work, it is so simple in this century to copy and paste a question, or type in the main words and receive exactly what we are looking for, then go on to use this information with little of our work being used. This can lead to academic dishonesty as it is considered plagiarism. Although this shows areas of our work where we have acted unethical, it is taken to a whole different level when looking at hackers and thieves. Looking for our details, hackers and thieves may benefit greatly as they can make a profit off what they have stolen from us. Cookies keep track of internet users, what we are searching, and the tabs we use. This is then transferred between the internet server and browser software to then be stored. Most hackers are looking for our data based on our internet usage, but as cookies have become more known and used more frequently, hackers and thieves are just as interested in your cookies. The hashed passwords used by web browsers are a big hit. Hackers and thieves are not the only ones invading our privacy through the digital footprint we have developed; big corporations are also known to do this.
Corporations are usually well known and have developed both a personal and professional digital footprint. Any form of digital footprint is information you leave or data you have created, behind. Leaving all this information behind creates a perfect opportunity for corporations to use our personal information. When we buy items online, whether it is clothes, food, or even house appliances we are putting every bit of our details on the internet to get it delivered to our doorstep. Putting these details out onto the internet can lead to big consequences if the corporations do not use our information for the right reasons. Not only have consequences on us, but it can also lead to corporations developing a bad professional digital footprint, due to breaching issues such as privacy and security which soon impacts the corporations’ morals and ethics. Holding our information and not securing it properly makes it a whole lot easier to access. When gathering our information and obtaining it, there are four main consumer data types that corporations look for, Personal, Engagement, behavioural, and attitudinal Leaving a digital footprint – Digital Citizenship. Indicating that they are after specific information throughout our internet usage. Changing passwords, having online orders sent to a PO box instead of a personal address are just two steps that help stop corporations from invading our privacy, giving us a better sense of safety and security. Although there are many situations where corporations have acted unethically through the internet, there are many situations where they use our information to better their business. Invading our privacy and using our personal information is not ideal, utilising this information may help clear our conscience and give us a strong sense of safety and security.
As much as we would like to blame the unethical behaviour of corporations for stealing our information through our internet usage, there are many precautions we can put in play to stop this. Our digital footprint is any information and data we have created behind, saving passwords to the internet, and accepting cookies are two of the main areas in how individuals fail to comply with this issue. Accepting cookies shows hackers, thieves, corporations, and anyone with the right access, to see our digital footprint 5 ways to make a positive digital footprint. Across the world today there are many people pushing everyone to change their passwords every two months, create a password that is 12 units or longer, or just have at least a couple of passwords for different things. With the rates of people being hacked rising, there is a huge push from researchers to do these easy steps such as changing our passwords every two months, not reusing a common password, and put our passwords in a safe and secure spot, making it a whole lot harder for our data and information to be stolen, ensure that it doesn’t leave a dent on our digital footprint. Affecting our professional digital footprint, we need to ensure that whatever digital footprint we have, is kept in a manner that will not affect opportunities such as getting a job. Acting unethical on the internet just raises our chances of getting a bad reputation through our digital footprint.
While using the internet is a part of our everyday life, our activity on it is a key piece that affects our privacy and security. Utilising the internet we need to make sure we are acting ethically, the covid 19 is a prime example of this. Throughout the pandemic, there were many cases where people’s online activity led them straight into the hands of hackers. The increase in online shopping only more details than ever before on display, but due to our lack of knowledge and understanding it led to us seeing first hand the unethical behaviour on the internet.If we were all to do our research on how we can prevent this from happening it would decrease the number of hackers dramatically. Gaining greater knowledge on this issue would also improve our safety and privacy on the internet. Doing these simple searches online is what is going to stop our privacy from being invaded. Over 40 million people have reused passwords for their Microsoft account, this is a clear statistic to see this lack of knowledge and understanding in play. With the number of studies and investigations that are focused and aimed to put a stop to this, we need to start realising the full extent it not only has on our privacy and safety but also our personal and professional digital footprint.
Acting unethically on the internet can not only be put on hackers, thieves, or corporations. Our behaviour is what gets us into situations where we can see just how unethical human activity is primarily responsible for our lack of privacy and safety on the internet. Although this blog has stated in more ways than one just how unethical human activity on the internet is a big issue, it also shows how this can happen. Undertaking the many ways researchers suggest to stop all of this happening, will allow our digital footprint to be better protected. Yes, hackers, thieves, and corporations all show ways in how they act unethically on the internet, it is also our behaviours and morals, and the ethics we hold are one of the biggest contributing factors to this issue.
References
O’Driscoll. A. (August 28th, 2020) 25+ Password statistics (that may change your password habits) Comparitech
https://www.comparitech.com/blog/information-security/password-statistics/
Hill. J. Dicus- Sulzman. J.Matzeder. L. (May 31st, 2017) . Digital Footprint {Video} Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7s7vqk5Jyk