A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology

Conclusion

Information is the sap of contemporary societies, and IT provides the essential tool for its generation, recording, flow, management and usage. The corruption, wanton destruction, illegal or unethical use of information may easily undermine the basic processes on which the life of individuals and their complex societies depends (Brown and Duguid 2002). In light of their importance, the whole life cycle of information – from collection or generation through storage and manipulation to usage and possible erasure – is often protected, at different stages, by legal systems in various ways and in many different contexts. Examples include copyright and ownership legislation, patent systems, privacy protection laws, fair use agreements, regulations about availability and accessibility of sensitive data, and so forth. The more societies develop into information-based societies, the more concerned and careful they need to become about their very foundation. Unsurprisingly, in recent years ethical and political concerns about the correct and fair usage of IT have begun to address the challenging ethical issues raised by the new data-based environment in which advanced societies grow (Floridi 2007).