Information Technology (IT) Ethics: Training and Awareness Materials for the Department of the Navy

Information ethics is a relatively new field of study that aims to identify and to analyze the impact technology has on society, personal values, and the application of ethics in cyberspace. The Department of the Navy (DoN) continues to experience incidents of unethical behavior by personnel using government computers and accessing the Internet from within government networks. These incidents will continue and grow in number as the Navy and Marine Corps’ dependence upon information technology (IT) increases. There are circumstances requiring ethical decision making encountered by naval personnel that are not sufficiently addressed by policy. Many of these situations do not neatly translate from ordinary experience to the IT world. These topics include the right to privacy, the protection of intellectual property, the collection and stewardship of information, and cyber crime. To address this problem, training materials on a CDROM have been created with the objective of giving DoN personnel a better understanding of the ethical responsibilities that are required when using IT. The training materials provide decision making tools to better prepare naval personnel when facing ethical dilemmas in the IT context.