CILIP Information Ethics

Marti Smith is back

Readers in the USA may be familiar with Marti Smith and her blog The Information Ethicist.  Although her blog only ran for around 18 months, it was one of the few sources of active commentary in our field.  Marti's blog went silent in September 2006, but, according to Marti's Learning Place, she plans to resume blogging about information ethics. This is great news and we look forward to her musings.

Ethics unchallenged. The case of Wikileaks.

Recent news that Wikileaks - the 'uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis' - is to receive legal aid to challenge an attempt to close it down following its disclosure of alleged wrongdoing by Swiss bank Julius Baer, prompted us to look at the perceived role of ethics in Wikileaks' actions.

Interesting to note first is the position statement of Wikileaks on its homepage as a site which 'we expect to be of assistance to peoples of all countries who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations'.

There are several lengthy pieces in Wikileaks itself referring to its ethical position, and to the ethics of whistle-blowing.  However, a cursory search of the web (OK, we used Google) suggests that the majority of commentary about Wikileaks, and in particular following the current Julius Baers action, considers ethics to be only of minor interest.  It is reported by the majority of news articles as if one is expected to take it for granted that freedom of reporting or the absence of censorship are implicitly 'ethical'.  But this is reported with such brevity, without any consideration for a balanced discussion of what constitutes ethical behaviour.

There are relatively few balanced ethical discussions (compared with the volume of these news reports or statements making passing references to journalists' ethics) like this detailed review of ethics in the age of web 2.0 technologies.

One wonders why, if journalists are so keen to state that freedom of reporting or the absence of censorship are 'ethical', there is so little discussion or debate about what this really means, or even much in the way of counterargument.

Would you tell a bomber?

A documentary on Britain's Channel 4 yesterday looked at airport security.  Journalist Andrew Gilligan cited all manner of weaknesses in airport security at British airports, and in one scene demonstrated how easy it could be to smuggle a liquid explosive aboard.

Although there was a degree of journalist's sensationalism about this particular scene, what was notable from an ethical perspective was the demonstration of simplicity with which such an explosive devise could, apparently, be made and smuggled onto an aircraft.

In an attempt to highlight (which may be a euphemism for 'sensationalise', depending on one's perspective) a security weakness, the programme makers added a sense of mysteriousness to the liquid explosive.  Showing two small bottles of innocuous-looking liquid being poured into a larger bottle, we were told that the ingredients were relatively ordinary, clearly suggesting that they could be acquired by anyone.  The trick was, of course, to know what those liquids were.

Viewers' suspense was heightened when the demonstrator said that, although relatively ordinary, he would not give away the secret of the contents of the bottles.  As if to say it would be unethical to do so, because then anyone so inclined could build their own small explosive devise.  But perhaps one should question the ethics of demonstrating the ease with which a liquid explosive could be made in the first place?

Clearly we do not believe that any determined terrorist will find it difficult to get hold of the ingredients, but to suggest that by actively withholding details of the ingredients from the television documentary is somehow an act worthy of upholding is itself notable.  We know from Robert Hauptman's famous experiment of the 1970s that reference librarians would not refuse on ethical grounds to provide information guidance to those seeking to make explosives, so why not provide information guidance on a television documntary?

Perhaps it has something to do with the size of the audience and the likelihood that there would be opportunistic 'terrorists' watching the documentary.  And we could suggest that the social environment of a British television audience in 2008 is different to that which existed in the US when Hauptman did his experiment.  Perhaps, however, this is an example of an ethical dilemma facing journalists and librarians alike.

Internet Research Ethics journal published

We are pleased to note that the first issue of the semi-annual International Journal of Internet Research Ethics (IJIRE) has just been published by the Center for Information Policy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. 

The IJIRE is described as 'the first peer-reviewed online journal, dedicated specifically to cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural research on Internet Research Ethics'.  As a unique and still relatively novel cross-disciplinary field, internet research ethics raises a number of complex questions which, it is claimed, will be considered in this new journal.  Introductory remarks by the publisher on the emergence of internet research put ethics firmly in a pivotal position:

'What about privacy? How is informed consent obtained? What about research on minors? What are "harms" in an online environment? Is this really human subjects work? More broadly, are the ethical obligations of researchers conducting research online somehow different from other forms of research ethics practices?

'As Internet Research Ethics has developed as its own field and discipline, additional questions have emerged: How do diverse methodological approaches result in distinctive ethical conflicts – and, possibly, distinctive ethical resolutions? How do diverse cultural and legal traditions shape what are perceived as ethical conflicts and permissible resolutions? How do researchers collaborating across diverse ethical and legal domains recognize and resolve ethical issues in ways that recognize and incorporate often markedly different ethical understandings?'

These are crucial issues not only in internet research but in the disciplines of which the IJIRE is the cross-disciplinary manifestation, such as social science research.

We look forward to future issues of the IJIRE, and in particular to the publishing of practical scenarios or ethical dilemmas.

Ethical responsibility in telemedicine

We hear that publisher IGI Global had put out a call for chapters for the Handbook of Research on Knowledge Management in Telemedicine: Advanced Ethics, Policy and Regulatory Applications edited by Dr Jayanth Paraki.

The field of telemedicine, let alone KM in telemedicine, currently suffers from a lack of global coordination.  This particularly affects developing nations where information standards and governance may not be consistent with generally accepted best practice.  As a result, there is great potential for paraprofessional or lay users of telemedicine services to be dependent on the veracity of the services as they are provided.

Ethically the responsibility should lie primarily with the provider of the service, to ensure that effective and recognised information services are provided.  However, the users of such services surely require the support of local (national) educators to highlight the potential pitfalls of putting trust in remotely delivered medical information services where one may be poorly equipped to determine the objective value of the service.

This is an interesting field of study and we encourage visitors to leave their comments here.

Publish your ethics

Pacific Daily News of Guam recently published an opinion piece extolling the virtues of promoting ethical standards:

'Every year, for the past nine years, the Pacific Daily News has published its principles of ethical conduct, which outline our standards for reporting the news to our readers. We do so because we believe it's important that we are fully open and accountable to our readers. We not only report the news according to these principles, but every year we detail what the principles are and what they mean so that you can measure us by these standards and hold us accountable.

'The Pacific Daily News recognizes our responsibility to deliver to our readers news that is truthfully reported, fair and balanced, accurate and impartial and that serves the public interest.'

We cannot comment on whether or to what extent the journalists of Pacific Daily News fully uphold their Ethical Principles as we are not familiar with their reporting.  However, despite some rather caustic counter-comments posted alongside this article criticising the newspaper's ethical standards, we are intrigued by the essence of the article.

It seems to be saying that highlighting the Ethical Principles is an ethically positive act in itself; that the promotion of one's code of ethics (or whatever we call it) is part and parcel of behaving in an ethical way.

Whilst we, the editors of Information Ethics, and CILIP have striven to promote our Institute's Code and Principles, we note a relative dearth of promotion of ethical behaviour by other information professionals.  This is not to suggest that our fellow infopros do not uphold CILIP's ethical standards, but that they and their employing organisations appear not to publish, explicitly, a position statement on ethical standards.  Many organisations, particularly in the US, actively promote corporate ethical standards on publicity material (e.g. web sites), but the same cannot be said of the information profession.

Why do we not actively promote the ethical framework (e.g. CILIP, ALA, etc.) to which we relate our actions in the same way as these Pacific journalists?  Perhaps on each of our reports, emails, or patron newsletters, or whatever marketing material we produce as infopros, we could state our desire to uphold ethical principles?

EthicalLibrarian raises interesting issues

In the spirit of highlighting interesting new snippets in the information ethics world, we report this time on another blog from a US degree programme.  EthicalLibrarian's several authors have been posting for about a month on a truly interesting range of pertinent issues in library ethics.  We will include an alert to new posts from the EthicalLibrarian blog feed in the frame on the right of our InfoEthics blog.

Student ethics blogs

Over the years of gathering material for our collection of case studies we have often lamented the relative paucity of undergraduate (and graduate) teaching in the information ethics field.  Investigations by Charles Oppenheim, Stuart Hannabuss, Paul Sturges and others in the UK have noted the inadequacy with which many LIS students are equipped to deal with ethical dilemmas in the workplace.

It is therefore pleasing to come across a small group of first-year students at Elmhurst College in Illinois taking the module on global climate change in which the first assignment is ...

"... to write a blog post - in your own blog - with some reflections about the readings and discussion about academic dishonesty, cheating, plagiarism, etc ... . This post contains some places to start as you begin to write out your thoughts about information ethics. Use any or all (or none) of these questions/prompts to organize your thoughts. You should write at least 5 paragraphs."

Although not on a programme of studies related to LIS, these students are at least discussing issues which are clearly of interest to the information ethicist, and which would complement an LIS programme otherwise devoid of ethical content.

Not many of the students have yet posted material on their personal blogs (the assignment was only posted last week), but of those who have begun to post there are valuable and interesting perspectives on plagiarism, cheating (one written by a student whose parents are librarians) and, covering a multitude of relevant issues, the importance of information ethics.

One prospective blogger announces that his blog "... is a site deticated [sic] to the debunking of information in the quest to uncover the black cloud of mis and dis information in our media."  LIS students take note!

We will come back to these students' blogs later on when more thoughts might have emerged, and in the meantime we hope they may come across some interesting material on information ethics on this site.

IFAP launches an online database of projects

UNESCO, Paris, 07-Sep-07: Over five hundred projects submitted to the Information for All Programme (IFAP) for funding are now made available for consultation on IFAP website.

Further to a call for proposals launched in 2005, the Bureau of the Intergovernmental Council for IFAP has received more than 500 project proposals for funding from organizations all over the world. The IFAP Special Fund, supported by voluntary contributions from UNESCO’s Member States and other donors, has allowed the Bureau to fund only a limited number of the proposals following specific criteria. The projects were funded mainly in IFAP’s three priority areas, namely information literacy, information preservation and information ethics.

This database provides online access to all these projects, whether they are funded or not. It seeks to provide Member States and future donors with basic information on projects still looking for funding, up to date information on projects under implementation, statistical data, as well as some concrete stories demonstrating how access to information and knowledge can change people’s lives.

Of the 464 projects still unfunded, some 128 (26%) relate to the information ethics priority area.

IFAP is an intergovernmental programme, created in 2001. It seeks to narrow the gap between the information rich and the information poor, and supports the development of common strategies, methods and tools for building an information society for all. It also provides a framework for international co-operation and partnerships.

Wikipedia information accuracy

Librarians in commercial organisations beware: If news media reports are true, Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia which 'anyone can edit', is actively edited with subjective content by those with a vested interest in presenting a particular viewpoint.  This is probably not surprising, given the opportunity enabled by Wikipedia of anonymous editing.  What is useful, however, is the possible reinforcing of caution which librarians need to exercise in using Wikipedia - or any information source for that matter - in providing a mediated information service.

The background to this particular news media episode is a service called The WikiScanner.  It purports to link the IP addresses associated with edits in Wikipedia to named corporate networks.  The case cited by most media reports yesterday was that of the Central Intelligence Agency which, apparently, has edited its own Wikipedia entry to present a more favourable image.  Many other organisations are mentioned in the news media too.

This case highlights librarians' and other information professionals' duty to provide the best possible service, to ensure that users of their service are aware of any possible limitations of the service (e.g. the fact that information has been gleaned from a Wikipedia entry), and to make sure they maintain an appropriate level of professional competence (and so be able to make informed judgements about the possible veracity of information sources).  These duties are covered by several parts of CILIP's Code and Principles, including Code B1 (ensure that information users are aware of the scope and remit of the service being provided), B7 (ensure that the information systems and services for which they are responsible are the most effective, within the resources available, in meeting the needs of users) and B8 (ensure that the materials to which they provide access are those which are most appropriate to the needs of legitimate users of the service), and Principles 4 (provision of the best possible service within available resources) and 7 (impartiality, and avoidance of inappropriate bias, in acquiring and evaluating information and in mediating it to other information users).

Interestingly, of the Wikipedia issue itself, today's Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper reports that '[Canadian] MPs whose Wikipedia pages were significantly altered include ... Ontario Conservative Jeff Watson, who serves on the Commons' access to information, privacy and ethics committee.'  Whilst many might agree that selective purposeful editing of the sort identified by The WikiScanner service may be somewhat unethical, information professionals may like to consider the ethical position of using The WikiScanner.  Although the service only does what a competent information professional could manually do but much more efficiently, is there a case for suggesting that the ease with which The WikiScanner identifies the source of edits always benefits the users of the information and does not cause any harm either to Wikipedia or to editors of other entries?