Professional and Management and Skills H1041
Ethics Assessment 2
Blay Whitby 09.04.2018
Select one of the case-studies below. Write a report which expands on the case by
describing the ethical issues, if any, raised by the case you have chosen. Do not
omit any legal requirements. These are only brief outlines. You should research
(and include references on) your chosen case looking in particular, for project
management issues on which you can comment from an ethical point of view.
You should also explain which, if any, ethical principles might help
prevent any recurrence of this sort of event. Your report may cover technical
matters where necessary but the marks will be awarded mainly for coverage of ethical
issues.
Your report should be well-structured and no longer than 2000 words.
References and appendices are not included in the word count.
This assessment should normally be submitted in Week 11 – Check Sussex Direct
for your exact submission details.
Case 1 – Apple and the FBI
In 2013 Edward Snowden revealed that various state security agencies including the
NSA in the US and GCHQ in Britain could access almost all the information held on any
smartphone. Perhaps in response to this revelation, Apple developed new encryption
technology for iOS 8 and later devices which prevented any outside access to users’
data. Despite legal objections, Apple continues to use encryption methods which can not
be read by the security services.
On December 2nd 2015, 14 people were killed and 22 were seriously injured in a
terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California. The terrorists had destroyed their
personal phones immediately before the attack but one of them had also been issued
with an Apple iPhone 5c by his employer which was recovered after the attack. The FBI
had reason to believe that some information on this iPhone such as call history, internet
history, and location tracing would be of great importance in preventing further acts of
terrorism. However, they were unable to hack into this phone because of Apple’s new
security features.
On 9th February 2106, the FBI obtained a court order requiring Apple to unlock this
phone by providing a new one-off iOS operating system which would allow them to use
brute force methods to defeat the pin code without erasing all data after 10 attempts –
as it can be set by the user to do. The FBI said this would be used once only to crack this
particular phone and be destroyed afterwards.
Apple repeatedly refused to comply with this order: stating that creating such a
‘trapdoor’ would encourage others to do the same and would not be consistent with
their commercial goal of protecting their users’ information. On 16th February Apple
CEO Tim Cook sent an online ‘letter’ to all Apple users explaining why the company was
taking this position. Most tech companies in California sided with Apple in this debate
but polls suggest that a majority of US citizens take the side of the FBI.
The US Department of Justice therefore filed a federal application to compel Apple to
comply and Apple announced that it would fight the federal order in court. However,
while legal preparations were being made, the FBI were approached by ‘a third party’
(assumed to be Cellebrite, the Israeli data-extraction specialists) and on 28th March
2016 announced that they had, with the help of this ‘third party’, successfully broken
into the iPhone and no longer required assistance from Apple.
Case 2 – The loss of STS-107 Columbia
On January 16th 2003 during the launch of the space shuttle Columbia piece of foam
insulation broke off from the Space Shuttle external tank and struck the left wing. On at
least 4 previous launches of the space shuttle similar foam strikes had been observed
and it was not considered a serious problem.
Engineering and management views of the subsequent space flight differed in a manner
highly reminiscent of the loss of STS-51-L Challenger. Engineers made three separate
requests for US Department of Defense imaging of the shuttle in orbit to determine if
there was any damage. While the images were not guaranteed to show the damage, the
technical capability existed for imaging of sufficient resolution to provide meaningful
examination. NASA management did not honour the requests and in some cases may
have intervened to stop the Department of Defence from assisting. The exact details of
these communications with the military currently remain classified.
Risk assessment meetings came to the conclusion that the flight was not in danger.
John Harpold, Director of Mission Operations reportedly said: “You know, there is
nothing we can do about damage to the TPS (Thermal Protection System). If it has been
damaged, it’s probably better not to know. I think the crew would rather not know.
Don’t you think it would be better for them to have a happy successful flight and die
unexpectedly during entry than to stay on orbit, knowing that there was nothing to be
done, until the air ran out?”
No further attempt was made to investigate the damage to Columbia and the crew was
told: “Experts have reviewed the high speed photography and there is no concern for
RCC or tile damage. We have seen this same phenomenon on several other flights and
there is absolutely no concern for entry”
Re-entry of Columbia began as scheduled early on 1st February 2003. At 0853 when
travelling at about Mach 23 in the upper atmosphere, superheated air entered a large
hole in the leading edge of the left wing leading to the complete destruction of the
spacecraft and the deaths of the crew. The subsequent enquiry: Columbia Accident
Investigation Board, was particularly critical of the management culture within the
upper echelons of NASA. There was also criticism of the software used by the engineers.
Case 3 – ‘Big Data’ and User Profiling
In 2013 a Cambridge University researcher, Aleksandr Kogan, created a Facebook app called
‘ThisisyourDigitalLife’. This app was used by over 300,000 users on Facebook, but Kogan
also accessed the profile data of other Facebook users, who were friends of those who had
used the app. Facebook users had all explicitly given consent for their data to be collected in
this way. In 2014 Facebook modified its rules to say that a developer could not access a
user’s friends’ data unless the friend also gave permission for the same. However, Kogan did
not delete the data that he had already acquired from his app. In 2015 The Guardian ran a
story that a UK firm, Cambridge Analytica was using the personal information obtained by
this app to target voters in US election campaigns.
Facebook responded to this story by banning ‘ThisisyourDigitalLife’ and insisting that both
Dr Kogan and Cambridge Analytica delete all personal user data obtained from the app.
Facebook now claims that both parties assured them that all the data had been deleted.
However, in March 2018 Christopher Wylie, a whistle-blower, revealed that Cambridge
Analytica had used the personal data of 50 million individual users to profile and target
voters in the EU referendum in the UK and in the US Presidential election in 2016.
Cambridge Analytica, its parent company Strategic Communication Laboratories Group
(SCL) and a data-mining subsidiary AggregateIQ are all implicated in using data which they
had been asked to delete, as a means to influence the outcomes of elections in several
countries. They are also accused of planting ‘fake news’ on Facebook, based on user profile
information about what people are likely to believe.
Facebook then announced it was suspending Cambridge Analytica along with its parent
group Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL) over the data leaks and attempted to
perform a data audit. Facebook was stopped by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office
who will now carry out an investigation.
Facebook still have not made clear how many users have had their data ‘scraped’ but there is
pressure on CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify before the US Congress and the company’s
stock market valuation has fallen by about $80 billion.
Case 4 – Volkswagen Emissions
Modern motor manufacturers need to produce vehicles that comply with strict
standards governing emissions. This is not only a legal necessity but also a key
marketing point. The Volkswagen Audi group, as one of the world’s largest car
manufacturers, started in 2009 to produce a new generation of ‘Clean Diesels’ which it
claimed met all the new emissions standards in the US and the EU. As a result,
Volkswagen Group gained green car subsidies and tax exemptions in the US. The 2009
Volkswagen Jetta Diesel was awarded Green Car of the Year. This and similar diesel
models were marketed as ‘green technology’.
After this, there were many indications that Volkswagen’s Clean Diesel range did not
meet the legal emissions standards in real road conditions. In 2014 scientists at West
Virginia University collected data on emissions in real world driving conditions –
finding, for example, that the award-winning Jetta exceed the legal limit by a factor of 15
to 35. Eventually on 18 September 2015 the US EPA served a Notice of Violation (NOV)
on Volkswagen Group. They claimed that approximately 480,000 VW and Audi vehicles
equipped with 2-litre TDI engines, and sold in the US between 2009 and 2015, had an
emissions-compliance ‘defeat device’ installed. Up to 11 million vehicles may be affected
worldwide.
In this case, the ‘defeat device’ was engine management software that detected when an
emissions test was being conducted, through parameters such as no steering input,
bonnet open, or only one set of wheels turning. All of these would indicate that the car
was on a ‘rolling road’ test bed and not being used in traffic. It is usually necessary for
engine management software to detect a test situation in order to protect the engine
from damage. However, it is very easy for engineers and software designers to use this
feature in order to optimize one set of variables during an emission test and another set
during driving. The Volkswagen case is not the first use of such a ‘defeat device’ –
something defined in US law – many examples of such devices illegally used by many
large motor manufacturers go back to the 1970s.
Volkswagen group had initially claimed that the discrepancies in emissions were
technical glitches until confronted with the hard evidence of the ‘defeat devices’. As
things stand, it is not clear at precisely what level in the company the decision to sell
vehicles engineered in this way was taken.
Estimates for the number of extra deaths in the US caused by Volkswagen’s use of defeat
devices vary from 10 to 350. The company has put aside US$18.32 billion to deal with
the immediate problem but the long term costs to Volkswagen Audi Group will be far
greater. It is also likely that all manufacturers of combustion-engine vehicles will suffer
steadily declining sales from now on as public confidence in ‘green’ claims by
manufacturers is lost.
