Ethical Issues Relating to Information Technology
Juanita Arlene O’Dell
BIS/220
9/22/14
Heather Shankwiler

Ethical Issues Relating to Information Technology
In 2001, we were still using dial up internet to instant message our friends and we were meeting new people in chat rooms. In 2014, Home Depot revealed that hackers accessed 56 million credit card numbers, putting its shoppers at significant financial risk. To say that our information technology has made leaps and bounds in a relatively short amount of time is a tremendous understatement. As with most things, good comes with bad, and we have had to struggle to keep pace when it comes to keeping personal information private and personal.
Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970 and the HIPPA Act of 1996
The Fair Credit Reporting Act is legislation that was enacted by Congress in 1970 to ensure that reporting activities relating to consumer transactions are conducted in a manner that is fair to the individual, and to protect the consumer’s right to privacy against the demands of credit reporting companies. (Batten, 2010)
HIPPA is legislation that was put into place by Congress in 1996 that protects all of your personal medical information. Friends, family, media and strangers can no longer ask for you by name at the hospital without your consent and lawyers can no longer access your medical records without either your consent and/or a court order.
Both HIPPA and the FCRA have made our records more secure as technology drives our documents further away from paper and deeper into the cyber