Introduction
Ethical and legal issue are some of the most important issue that a company has to ensure that they well taken care of. Any business organization, whether profit or non profit, must have a clear outline of code of ethics as well it must adhere to the laws set buy the jurisdiction in its area of operation. Failure to uphold ethics working ethics may often lead to law suits.
In this paper I give a summary of what constitutes ethics in the context of a manager carrying out his/her duties and the legal involved in such. This article specifically examines the ethical and legal issues in reference to managers involved in data storage on behalf of their client.
Summary
Data storage on behalf of client is quite sensitive as the data, in most cases, is sensitive and has to be offered full and comprehensive protection from any intrusion. With the advancement in technology it has continuously become possible for stored data to be illegally accessible; this has become possible through identity theft, hacking among other means. At the work places sometimes information access by employees is limited and this is an ethical issue depending on why and what kind of information is being limited.
Though most of the unethical issue are illegal, the two – ethics and law – can not be said to mutually inclusive as some business activities may be legal but not ethically. Business ethics therefore can be said to go beyond what the law stipulates and can be viewed as the foundation upon which a mutual relationship between a client and a business firm is build.
However, with time the law is progressing to cover some unethical issues which have been left out of its grasp in the past: use of spam, leaking of private and confidential information, intrusion into competitor information among others.
The internet has been one of the major channels which have magnified unethical practices and its governance is a subject that is much considered. The internet can be viewed as the fabric which joins almost all aspect of the society from governance, carrying out business and socializing. The internet has therefore become part of our everyday life implying that ethical issues will even be more pronounced as the society integrates the internet more into its everyday use.
Integration of the internet in the daily activities in the society has given rise to ethical issues with regard to privacy. The ethical issue brought about by the internet literary flows out in all directions; for instance, employer monitoring of the employees over what they do may raise intrusion of privacy and at the same time if the employees are using office hours to engage in non office tasks over the internet.
There is a need for more effort to be put into developing ways of restricting illegal access to information. Illegal access of information over the internet can arguably be said to be the most disturbing and biggest challenge that has come along with the internet. Illegal access of information has led to loss of lots of money. The internet has made it possible for copyright laws to be violated.
Conclusion
Managing ethical and legal issues is a challenging task. The internet has been continuously used to bring out issues touching on ethics. Due to the sensitivity of information passed over the internet, there is a need to develop means of protecting such data from being accessed illegally.