IT Essay: National ID cards Ethical issues

IT Essay issue ID cards Ethical issuesNational ID cards have long been advocated as a means to enhance subject area security, unmask potential terrorists, and guard against illegal immigrants. They are in use in some countries around the world including almost European countries, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.Currently, the United States and the United Kingdom have continued to debate the merits of adopting national ID cards. The types of card, their functions, and covert safeguards vary widely. In UK, The Governments decision to introduce a national Identity Cards Scheme was announced in the Queens Speech on 17 May 2005 and the Identity Cards Bill was reintroduced to Parliament. The realize for introduction depends on the timing of the Bill being passed as law. It is expected to issue the first ID cards from 2008. But there has been a huge hollo over the issue and public continue to debate over it.According to the government press releases, ID cards will permi t legal UK residents, including alien nationals, with an well-to-do and secure expressive style of proving who they are. ID cards will be linked to their owners by unique biometric identifiers (for example, fingerprints) which mean one will have a much stronger way of protecting peoples identities. Background checks will ensure that claimed identities are real and non stolen, and will prevent condemnables using multiple identities.The card will have the expatiate like Name, address, gender, date /place of birth, immigration status, finger prints and iris scan. However it will not have sensitive in conformationation such as ethnical origin, medical records, tax records etcIn UK, anyone who is in the country for to a greater extent than 3 months and is over 16 years old is eligible for an National ID card. usual and hidden sector organisations will be able to check the information held on the National Identity Register to help them establish the individuality of their custome rs and staff. For example, you may be asked to prove your identity when opening a bank account or registering with a doctor.Major points advocating the need for an ID card is1. Prevention of Identity theft An ID card will prevent the identity theft of an individual by providing him a secure and straightforward manner of proving and protecting their identity..2. Prevention of illegal immigration and hold out ID cards will stenghten immigration control.Government and people will know who is a legal citizen of the country and who go the adjusts to work here, thereby preventing illegal work which infact affects the economy.3. Public function ID cards will help ensure public services are used by those entitled to use them .Thus it will improve the persuasiveness and efficiency of service delivery.4. Terrorism and organised crime Just as people will gain an individual benefit from registering with the ID cards scheme, as more people r enrolled society as a whole benefits.It will be be tter protected from activities of those who use false identities, from people who hide their criminal bypast to avoid restrictions on working with children through to organised crime and those who support terrorist activites.ID cards- Ethical issuesWe will discuss the national ID cards issue with venerate to various computer ethical theories1. Ethical relativism According to this surmise, exampleity is relative to the norms and traditions of a society.It states that whether an action is dear or hurt depends on the society in which it is practiced.Actions which are right in one society can be considered wrong in another one.Now comparing this to the issue of national ID cards, which are considered as a tag to a citizen attached by the government.Although National ID cards have been utilize in various europeon countries , malaysia, singapore etc that for countries like UK or USA, its not a very good idea to implement this.Reason being these countries are quite liberal in term s of foreigners settling in to pull in ones horns up jobs and a higher standard of upkeep.So the culture is mixed.There are various colors and races of people.Issue of national ID cards can foster a new form of racism and descrimination. E.g. in UK, Asian or African communities can become subject to constant identity checks to confirm their status in the country. Failure to drivel a national I.D. card would likely come to be viewed as a reason for search, detention or arrest of minorities. The stigma and humiliation of invariably having to prove that they are citizens or legal immigrants would weigh heavily on such groups.Now equivalenced to countries having a single colour people and not many foreign visitors, they big businessman not have the same problem as ID cards can grammatical case in USA or UK. So relativism theory holds reliable for national ID cards.It excessively depends on the situation of the society. National ID cards were issued in UK back in Second World Wa r. But it was done to preserve national security from intruders and spies from other countries. It was abolished later on. So considering the situation it was not a bad move that time. Now compare this to the present situation of UK the recent terrorist attacks, and set up Sep 11 attacks on USA.National ID cards will provide a means of identifying any suspected person or someone who is having a past criminal record. This can make the present society more safe compared to what it is today. But again the implications are far too many. With various immigrants from so many countries, it would just cause an embarrassment for them who are also an integral part of todays society in these countries, as they would be viewed as potential suspects. ID cards would also act as an internal passport in the country. This is no doubt useful in the case of criminals or terrorists, but a common citizen has to destine his credibility every time, thus giving a feeling of being monitored all the time.2 . Ethical utilitarianism This theory classifies an act as right or wrong depending on the happiness of the society or person concerned .If the act is right, it would bring happiness .But if its not the case, then it is considered wrong. Utilitarians also assume that it is possible to compare the intrinsic values produced by two alternative actions and to estimate which would have better consequences. If the difference in the results is not of alternative acts is not great, some Utilitarians do not regard the choice between them as a moral issue. Coming to the issue of national ID cards, there are various direct and corroboratory consequences on the society. Some of them are good and beneficial and some are not. According to utilitarians, it is possible to do a bad thing from a right motive. Basically it provides an answer to what should a man do, to provide best possible results. Step taken in terms of issuing an ID card has a right motive. It would help in prevention of identity t heft of an individual by someone else, prevention of illegal immigrants and travel into the country, as ID cards can provide a positive means of identification on the immigration status of a person. It would also help in prevention of misuse of public services and most importantly prevent the terrorists and persons having criminal record from taking fake identities to mix up in the society and try to cause some victimize to it. Now all these are the positive points coming from ID cards.But there are few negative points too. Utilitarian theory tries to compare the bad consequences with the good ones and harness out if the act is right or wrong. Now the foremost negative point about issuing an ID card is invasion of hiding of a person. solely information about a person would be stored in a centralised database which can be accessed by any authorised person with the gaol on a button. But that doesnt guarantee prevention of possible misuse by some corrupt individuals to find out th e details of someone and maybe change it. And information once changed if not tracked in time, can cause a great loss to that person who wouldnt know what went wrong. He might get denied a job in a public sector requiring security clearance. People can make fake ID cards and steal identity of others, as it would be the most reliable method to prove ones identity. ID cards would also restrict ones free movement across the country and can cause racial discrimination. Now comparing the negative and positive points of this step, it is very difficult to decide which step is right for the society. But taking the safety of todays society, the decision tilts middling in the favour of ID cards. But its a long debate and the exact consequences would only be known when the cards are actually implemented.3. Deontological Theory This theory focus on use of certain rules rather than consequences to justify an action or policy. The best-known deontological theory is that of Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. His theory stated thatMoral rules should be universalisable i.e. applied to all rational, moral members of the community rather than to just some. All persons should be treated never simply as means but also always as ends in themselves. Members of the moral community should take a hand in making the laws as well as living by them.This theory states that one has to follow some morals no matter what the consequences are. Matter of ID cards clearly violates some freedom of movement and secretiveness of an individual. So technically speaking it is not a moral thing to do. Even though the consequences can be good for the society, but according to this theory, it should not be done, as it is not morally correct. One of the theory by shelly kaggan states that individuals are bound by constraints which he should respect but also given some options which he can choose to follow or not. Issue of ID cards can be considered as an option but it is not exclusively correct morally as it affects some rights of human beings. Consequences are not considered in this theory. Apart from all these ethical issues affecting an individuals rights of data protection, freedom of movement, privacy etc, there are many more hurdles which comes into picture before implementing ID cardsConclusionIt is not known how ID cards will be goofproof given the above failure modes. Misuse can be far more dangerous than anticipated. And they are prone to errors and misuse, and are likely to be blindly trusted even when wrong. And cost of issuing the ID cards to every person in the country would run into billions which will most likely be paid by the tax payers of this country. As expensive as the financial costs are, the social costs are worse. However saying that, ID cards are not totally ineffective but a proper and more reliable systems needs to be put into place before deciding on the privacy and rights of the citizens. Data Protection law is wholly inadequate to deal with the us e of ID cards. Indeed legislation in most countries facilitates the use of ID cards, while doing little or nothing to limit the spectrum of its uses or the accumulation of data on the card or its related systems. However with its help in preventing terrorist activities, it can be implemented with a slight improvement on human rights issue. Morality of ID cards is still being debated all over the world, which is the main reason for the implementation acquiring delayed.Bibliography1. Ermann M and M.B. Williams. Computers, ethics and society. New York Oxford University Press, 1997, pp 12 50World Wide Web2. Home office.http//www.homeoffice.gov.uk/passports-and-immigration/id-cards/how-the-data-will-be-used/?version=1.Oct 09, 20053. Identity cards. http//www.identitycards.gov.uk. .Oct 09, 20054. Bruce Schneier. Schneier on Security. http//www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/05/real_id.html.Oct 10, 20055. National ID debate. http//www.vastlyimportant.com/vastly/2004/08/national_id_deb.ht mlcomments.Oct10,20056. Epic-National id and real ID act. http//www.epic.org/privacy/id_cards/. Oct10, 20057. Utilitarianism. http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism. Oct 12, 20058. Ethical Relativism. http//www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/ethicalrelativism.html. Oct 12,2005