In their investigations, the Ontario Police Department violated the right of their employee Sargent Quon, the violation of privacy contrary to Fourth Amendment Protection. The violation of Sergeant Quon’s rights to privacy is noticeable in that through the investigation, the investigators had an access to his personal information which entails his family affair as well as conversations with friends. Even though the investigation team has the right to access the information, it was improper in this case as the intention of the investigation was to find out whether Sergeant Quon had exceeded the recommended limit under which the personal allocation of conversation of the device was stipulated.
In checking an employee’s actual private text messages, the Ontario Police Department violated the individual’s privacy. This action exceeded their mandate of engaging specifically to the auditing of misuse of monthly allotment of characters on a department-issued pager by employees. It was unjustified for the Police Department officers to audit the actual text messages as there was no criminal offence committed by Sergeant Quon. The objective of their engagement was pegged on finding out whether Sergeant Quon had misused the department’s resources when he exceeded the character limit of 25,000 characters per month. Therefore, it can be concluded that the act by investigators had a trace of malice geared at causing injury to the reputation of an individual.
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Looking at it from a different façade as was determined by the District Court, it can be concluded that Sergeant Quon’s right to privacy was not violated. This argument is informed by the fact that Quon was notified by the department in writing that the policy applicable to the use of email, computer and internet for communication would be upheld in case of employees using the department pager. In the policy document, it is provided resoundingly that the use of City-owned materials, as well as communication through the city channels, was legally exposed to auditing. Thus the employees are advised to limit their communication through the city-owned tools and servers to work relevant matters only. In addition, it was learnt that through the department meeting Sergeant Quon was made aware that the texts on the department pager which is under his custody will be treated as email messages as per the purposes of city electronic policies. Regarded as of importance is that Quon was issued with a pager based on the fact that he was a member of the SWAT team within the department.
The manner in which he used sexually charged language in his texts should not form any basis for determination of whether or not his rights were violated. This argument is mounted on the fact that his use of language was not an act meant to cause an injury to the intended recipient of his texts. In the whole discussion, there is no complaint from Quon’s wife or any other person he was communicating to in private as a concern to damage of reputation or cause of emotional injury. Rather, it was informed by nature relations which Sergeant Quon was in with the recipients of his text messages.
The case of using pretexting to get the information about as was requested by HP Chief Executive Officer violated the obligation of business ethics which states that any business should avoid fraud or force in executing its mandate. On the same breath, it goes against ethical standing which provides that a business should not inflict harm. As concern to the theory of ethics, there is conflict on ethos subscribed to by these theories in regard to the matter of pretexting. Taking, for instance, the teleological theory, it is engrossed in the idea that actions’ rightness is identified by the intensity and value of good consequences they produce. Therefore, in the case of pretexting, the action is not considered immoral or unethical but the fact that this action has borne a fruit in terms of results it is considered ethical. On the contrary, deontological theory suggests that people have obligations to do some acts not due to perceived benefits to others and themselves but because of the inherent value of principles which they subscribe to. Hence, for this theory the idea of pretexting is against the good standing of ethics and that it’s not engrossed in agreeable principles of morality which ought to govern the activities at workplaces
The business model of ChoicePoint differs from that of online aggregators in that with ChoicePoint, the information is more exact and sensitive considering their source of information which focuses mostly on state agencies. While data aggressors mostly depend on online sources to gather personal data.
The information collected by ChoicePoint in most instances is likely to be more sensitive than the one provided by online behavior and purchases. This is due to the fact that in ChoicePoint’s case, they depend on personal information from reliable sources such as courts, debt collectors, birth certificates, marriage, and divorce decree. Therefore, its information is more reliable and sensitive as compared to online purchases in which one can lie about his or her information to create a given impression about oneself. Therefore, with ChoicePoint, there is a degree of honesty and trustworthiness which translates to the sensitivity of the information.
To better protect its consumer information from unauthorized access, ChoicePoint should implement a number of strategies. ChoicePoint needs to communicate clearly to consumers and notify them whenever their data has been breached. It should also control the access to sensitive consumer data. Lastly, it should invest in better fraud protection systems which can detect any data breaches early, enabling ChoicePoint to deter them.
