Case II: Privacy Rights
In this case the central
issue is the individual's right to privacy. Privacy is both a legal and an
ethical issue because of the pertinent laws discussed in the previous section.
The Case
Donald works for the county
records department as a computer records clerk, where he has access to files of
property tax records. For a scientific study, a researcher, Ethel, has been
granted access to the numerical portionbut not the corresponding namesof some
records.
Ethel finds some information
that she would like to use, but she needs the names and addresses corresponding
with certain properties. Ethel asks Donald to retrieve the names and addresses
so she can contact these people for more information and for permission to do
further study.
Should Donald release the
names and addresses?
Some Principles Involved
Here are some of the ethical
principles involved in this case. What are other ethical principles? Which
principles are subordinate to which others?
Job responsibility. Donald's
job is to manage individual records, not to make determinations of appropriate
use. Policy decisions should be made by someone of higher authority.
Use. The records are used for
legitimate scientific study, not for profit or to expose sensitive data.
(However, Ethel's access is authorized only for the numerical data, not for the
private information relating property conditions to individuals.)
Possible misuse. Although he
believes Ethel's motives are proper, Donald cannot guarantee that Ethel will
use the data only to follow up on interesting data items.
Confidentiality. Had Ethel
been intended to have names and addresses, they would have been given
initially.
Tacit permission. Ethel has
been granted permission to access parts of these records for research purposes,
so she should have access to complete her research.
Propriety. Because Ethel has
no authority to obtain names and addresses and because the names and addresses
represent the confidential part of the data, Donald should deny Ethel's request
for access.
Analysis
A rule-deontologist would
argue that privacy is an inherent good and that one should not violate the privacy
of another. Therefore, Donald should not release the names.
Extensions to the Basic Case
We can consider several
possible extensions to the scenario. These extensions probe other ethical
issues involved in this case.
Suppose Donald were responsible for determining allowable access to
the files. What ethical issues would be involved in his deciding whether to
grant access to Ethel?
Should Ethel be allowed to contact the individuals involved? That
is, should the health department release individuals' names to a researcher?
What are the ethical issues for the health department to consider?
Suppose Ethel contacts the individuals to ask their permission, and
one-third of them respond giving permission, one-third respond denying
permission, and one-third do not respond. Ethel claims that at least one-half
of the individuals are needed to make a valid study. What options are available
to Ethel? What are the ethical issues involved in deciding which of these
options to pursue?
To show that ethics can be
context dependent, let us consider some variations of the situation. Notice
that these changes affect the domain of the problem, but not the basic
question: access to personal data.
If the domain were medical
records, the case would be covered by HIPAA, and so we would first consider a
legal issue, not an ethical one. Notice, however, how the case changes subtly
depending on the medical condition involved. You may reach one conclusion if
the records deal with "ordinary" conditions (colds, broken legs, muscle
injuries), but a different conclusion if the cases are for sexually transmitted
diseases or AIDS. You may also reach a different conclusion if the research
involves genetic conditions of which the subject may be unaware (for example,
being a carrier for Huntington's disease or hemophilia).
But change the context once
more, and consider web surfing habits. If Donald works for an Internet service
provider and could determine all the web sites a person had visited, would that
be fair to disclose?
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