Privacy and Ethics

As discussed at the beginning of the chapter, information privacy and confidentiality is not a new issue, but the increased use of technology has created new concerns about the use of data, and not only information privacy concerns. In the mid-1980s, Mason (1986) suggested that the increased use of information technologies, which was labeled the Information Age, would lead to four major concerns about the use of information: privacy, accuracy, property, and accessibility (PAPA). Table 9.4 shows the PAPA framework. The framework can be used by managers to consider areas of concerns about information they handle in their organizations.

Table 9.4 PAPA Ethical Framework – For Students (Mason, 1986)