Shri Ramdeobaba College of Engineering and

Management, Nagpur

Department of Computer Science and

Engineering

Cyber Laws and Ethics in IT [HUT257]

Ethics of IT Organization [Unit-06]

By
Prof. A. R. Raipurkar

III Semester [Shift-II]

January 20, 2022 1
 Need of Non Traditional Workers

 Bureau of Labor statistics [BLS] forecast:

 Employment of computer software engineers will grow 34%
 Concern about a shortfall in the number of U.S. workers to fill these
positions
 Several IT positions in the top-ten paid majors for 2010-2011 bachelor’s
degree graduates
 Long-term shortage of IT workers
 Employers turning to nontraditional sources
 Source Includes:
 Contingent workers
 H-1B workers
 Outsourced offshore workers
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 Need of Non Traditional Workers

 Ethical decisions about whether to:

 Recruit new/more workers from these sources?
 Develop their own staff to meet their needs?

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Need of Non Traditional Workers

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Need of Non Traditional Workers

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 Contingent Workers

 Contingent work is a job situation in which an individual does not

have an explicit or implicit contract for long-term employment.
 Contingent workers include:
 Independent contractors
 Temporary workers through employment agencies
 On-call or day laborers
 On-site workers provided by contract firms
 Uses contingent IT workers if it experiences pronounced
fluctuations in its technical staffing needs.
 Workers hired for the life of the project only

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 Contingent Workers

 Workers are hired on contingent basis as a:

 Consultants [Technical or Functional]
 Technical experts on a product development team
 Supplemental staff for short-term projects, such as the design
and installation of new information systems
 Sources of Contingent worker
 Temporary agencies
 Employee leasing
 Consulting organization

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 Contingent Workers

 Firms that provide temporary help

 Recruit, train, and test their employees in a wide range of job
categories and skill levels
 Assign them to clients
 Contingent worker join a team of full-time employees and other
contingent workers for the life of the project and then move on
to their next assignment [To other Company]
 Contingent workers can be obtained through
 Temporary Staffing firms
 Employee Leasing organization

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Contingent Workers

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 Temporary Staffing Firm

 Temporary staffing firms recruit, train, and test job seekers in a

wide range of job categories and skill levels.
 Assign them to clients as needed
 Temporary employees are often used to fill in during staff
vacations and illnesses, handle seasonal workloads, and help
staff special projects
 However, they are not considered official employees of the
company.
 Not eligible for company benefits such as vacation, sick pay, and
medical insurance
 Temporary workers are often paid higher hourly wages than full
time employee??
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 Employee Leasing

 In employee leasing, a business (called the subscribing firm)

transfers all or part of its workforce to another firm (called the
leasing firm), which handles all human resource-related activities
and costs, such as payroll, training, and the administration of
employee benefits.
 The subscribing firm leases these workers, but they remain
employees of the leasing firm.

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 Co-employment Relationship

 Two employers have actual or potential legal rights and duties

with respect to the same employee or group of employees
 Some other ways:
 Organizations can also obtain temporary IT employees by
hiring a consulting firm.
 Consulting organizations maintain a staff of employees with a
wide range of skills and experience
 Consulting Firms works with their clients for implementation
of projects such as Enterprise Resource Planning [ERP]

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 Advantages of Contingent Worker

 Business does not to pay for benefits employees such as

insurance, paid time off, and contributions to a retirement plan
 Can continually adjust the number of contingent workers to stay
consistent with its changing business needs
 Does not incur training costs as many contingent workers are
specialist in a particular task.

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 Disadvantages of Contingent Worker

 Workers may lack a strong relationship with the firm

 Low commitment to the company and its projects
 High turnover rate
 Workers gain valuable practical experience [Additional skills and
knowledge] working within a company’s structure and culture
 Lost when workers depart at the project’s completion

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 When to use Contingent Workers?

 Recognize the trade-off between:

 trade-off: making between completing a single project quickly
and cheaply versus developing people within its own
organization
 Project requires unique skills that are probably not necessary for
future projects
 Project requires only temporary help that will not be needed for
future projects
 Using contingent workers avoids the need to hire new employees
and then fire them when staffing needs decrease??

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 When to use Contingent Workers?

 Can raise ethical and legal issues

 Potential liability for:
 Withholding payroll taxes
 Payment of employee retirement benefits
 Payment of health insurance premiums
 Administration of workers’ compensation
 Can be viewed as permanent employees by
 Internal Revenue Service
 Labor Department
 State workers’ compensation agency
 State unemployment agencies
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 Example

 In 2001, Microsoft agreed to pay a $97 million settlement to

10,000 ―permatemps‖—temporary workers who were employed
for an extended length of time as software testers, graphic
designers, editors, technical writers, receptionists, and office
support staffers.
 The Vizcaino v. Microsoft class action was filed in 1992 by eight
former workers who claimed that they— and thousands of other
permatemps—had been illegally shut out of a stock purchase plan
that allowed employees to buy Microsoft stock at a 15 percent
discount.
 Microsoft shares had skyrocketed in value throughout the 1990s.
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 H-1 B Workers

 Temporary work visa

 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
 For people who work in specialty occupations [jobs that require
at least a four-year bachelor’s degree in a specific field, or
equivalent experience]
 H-1B workers
 Meet critical business needs
 Have essential technical skills and knowledge not readily found
in the U.S
 used when there are temporary shortages of needed skills.
 U.S. not developing sufficient IT employees 18
 H-1 B Workers

 Maximum continuous period of six years

 After six years, the foreign worker must remain outside the
United States for one year before another H-1B petition can be
approved
 With sponsorship from their employers, H-1B visa holders can
apply for permanent residence
 During the application periods, their H-1B visas can be
renewed in one-year extensions until their green card is issued

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Cities with most H-1B workers

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Top H-1 B Visa Employers

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 H-1 B Workers

 Top five outsourcing countries in 2011

 India [58%]
 China [9%]
 Canada [9%]
 Philippines [3%]
 Korea [3%]

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 Problems with H-1 B Workers

 English as a second language

 Workers who are not fluent in English:

 May find it difficult and uncomfortable to participate

 May create their own cliques
 May stop trying to acclimate
 Can hurt a project team’s morale and lead to division
 Managers and coworkers should:
 Strive to help improve H-1B workers’ English skills and cultural
understanding
 Cultural shock?
 Be sensitive to workers’ heritage and needs

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 H-1B Application Process

 To receive an H-1B visa, the person must have a job offer from an
employer who is also willing to offer sponsorship.
 There are two application stages
 Labor Condition Application (LCA) and
 H-1B visa application
 If H-1B are more than 15% percent of company’s workforce:
 Must prove that it first tried to find U.S. workers
 Must prove not hiring H-1B after laying off similar U.S. worker
 The company files an LCA with the Department of Labor (DOL),
stating the job title, the geographic area in which the worker is
needed, as well as the salary to be paid 24
 H-1B Application Process

 The DOL’s Wage and Hour Division reviews the LCA to ensure that
the foreign worker’s wages will not undercut those of an American
worker.
 After the LCA is certified, the employer may then apply to the
USCIS for the H-1B visa, identifying who will fill the position and
stating the person’s skills and qualifications for the job
 A candidate cannot be hired until the USCIS has processed the
application, which can take several days or several months

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 Using H-1 B workers instead of US Workers

 Most H-1B workers are brought to the United States to fill a

legitimate gap that cannot be filled with the existing pool of
workers.
 Using H-1 B workers instead of US Workers Reduces cost
 Short term hiring decision
 Does nothing for future development of US
 Lessens US companies to educate and develop their own
workforce.

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 Potential exploitation of H-1 B workers

 Salary abuse by unethical companies

 Some H1-B workers are paid $10,000 to $30,000 less than U.S.
workers in the same job
 Visa Reform Act (2004)
 Defined a modified wage-rate system
 At end of the six-year visa term:
 If no green card, firm loses worker
 Suddenly unemployed worker must return home

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 Outsourcing

 Outsourcing is a long-term business arrangement in which a

company contracts for services with an outside organization that has
expertise in providing a specific function.
 Example:
 Operating a data center,
 Supporting a telecommunications network, or
 Staffing a computer help desk
 The goal of the outsourcing is to lower the cost and to keep their staff
focused on the company’s core competencies.
 Various companies started outsourcing entire IT business units to
organizations such as Accenture, Electronic Data Systems, and IBM.

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 Offshore Outsourcing

 Offshore outsourcing is a form of outsourcing in which the

services are provided by an organization whose employees are in
a foreign country.
 Companies reduce labor costs
 Increasing in IT industry
 As key processes move offshore, U.S. IT providers are forced to
lower prices
 Common to use offshore outsourcing for major programming
projects

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 Offshore Outsourcing

 American Express, Aetna, Compaq, General Electric, IBM, Microsoft,

Motorola, Shell, Sprint, and 3M are examples of big companies that
employ offshore outsourcing for functions such as
 Help-desk support,
 Network management, and
 Information systems development
 Cognizant Technology Solutions is headquartered in Teaneck, New
Jersey, but operates primarily from technology centers in India.
 India, with its rich talent pool (a high percentage of whom speak
English) and low labor costs, is considered one of the best sources of
programming skills outside Europe and North America

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 Nokia Example

 In 2011, Nokia, the Finnish mobile device manufacturer, and

Accenture, the global consulting company headquartered in Ireland,
announced a major outsourcing deal in which Accenture agreed to
provide Nokia with software development and support services for the
once popular Symbian mobile operating system and computing platform.
 2,300 Nokia employees in China, Denmark, Finland, India, the United
Kingdom, and the United States were transferred to Accenture as part of
the deal
 Symbian has fallen out of favor with phone handset manufacturers, and
Nokia has decided to transition to a Windows Phone platform for its line
of smartphones
 Accenture became the preferred supplier
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Offshore Outsourcing

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Offshore Outsourcing

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 Pros of Offshore Outsourcing

 The cost advantage for offshore outsourcing to India used to be 6:1

[hire six Indian IT workers for the cost of one U.S. IT Worker]
 The cost advantage is shrinking, [1.5:1 means ???]
 Dramatically speeds up development efforts [Make progress on a project
around the clock as the workers are working in different time zones]
 Example: the state of New Mexico contracted the development of a
tax system to Syntel [US Company]
 With technical teams working from networked facilities in different
time zones, Syntel executes a virtual “24-hour workday” that saves
 its customers money, speeds projects to completion, and
 provides continuous support for key software applications

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 Cons of Offshore Outsourcing

 Additional time that will be required to select an offshore vendor

 Additional costs that will be incurred for travel and communications of
offshore workers
 Same ethical issues as H1-B and contingent workers
 Cultural and language differences can cause misunderstandings among
project members in different countries.
 Example, in some cultures, shaking one’s head up and down simply
means ―Yes, I understand what you are saying.‖ It does not
necessarily mean ―Yes, I agree with what you are saying
 Difficulty of communicating directly with people over long distances can
make offshore outsourcing risky, especially when key team members
speak English as their second language
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 Cons of Offshore Outsourcing [Cont.…]

 The compromising of customer data is yet another potential outsourcing

issue.
 Example, Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital discovered that 45
patient records—including doctors’ notes, diagnoses, and medical
conditions—were accessible on an unsecured, publicly available Web
site for a few weeks due to an error by an outsourcing firm in India
 Company loses the knowledge and experience gained by outsourced
workers when those workers are reassigned after a project’s completion.
 Offshore outsourcing does not advance the development of permanent
IT workers in the United States

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 Whistle-Blowing

 Whistle-blowing is an effort to attract public attention to a negligent,

illegal, unethical, abusive, or dangerous act by a company or some
other organization
 Whistle-blowers act ethically to correct wrongdoing in an organization
 The term whistle blower comes from whistle a referee uses to
indicate illegal or foul play.
 Whistle-blower
 Usually has personal or special knowledge
 Risks own career
 Might even affect lives of friends and family
 Must choose between protecting society and remaining silent
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 Whistle-Blowing

 Protection laws allow employees to alert authorities to employer

actions that are unethical, illegal, or unsafe or that violate specific
public policies
 Example:
 Just months after the 9/11 attacks in 2002, President Bush had
secretly authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to listen in
on the calls of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of American citizens
to obtain evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved
warrants required for domestic spying.
 Whistle-blower Russell Tice, who had worked for both the
Defense Intelligence Agency and the NSA, later disclosed that he
was one of the sources for the story. 38
 Dealing With Whistle-Blowing Situation

 Dealing with a whistle-blowing situation

 Assess the seriousness of the situation
 Begin documentation
 Attempt to address the situation internally
 Consider escalating the situation within the company
 Assess implications of becoming a whistle-blower
 Use experienced resources to develop action plan
 Execute the action plan
 Live with the consequences

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 Dealing With Whistle-Blowing Situation

 Assess the seriousness of the situation

 Company or a coworker is acting unethically
 It will be serious threat to the public interest
 Informally seek trusted resources outside the company and ask
for their assessment.
 Begin Documentation
 Compile adequate documentation to establish wrongdoing
 Record all events and facts of wrongdoing
 Identify and copy all supporting memos, correspondence,
manuals, and other documents
 Documentation should be up to date.
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 Dealing With Whistle-Blowing Situation

 Attempt to Address the Situation Internally

 Try to handle problem internally by providing a written summary
to the appropriate managers.
 Focus should be on disclosing the facts and how the situation
affects others
 Goal should be to fix the problem, not to place blame
 Other side: Managers who are engaged in unethical or illegal
behavior might not welcome an employee’s questions and
employee demotion or termination on false or exaggerated claims
can occur.

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 Dealing With Whistle-Blowing Situation

 Attempt to Address the Situation Internally

 Try to handle problem internally by providing a written summary
to the appropriate managers.
 Focus should be on disclosing the facts and how the situation
affects others
 Goal should be to fix the problem, not to place blame
 Other side: Managers who are engaged in unethical or illegal
behavior might not welcome an employee’s questions and
employee demotion or termination on false or exaggerated claims
can occur.

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 Dealing With Whistle-Blowing Situation

 Consider Escalating the Situation Within the Company

 Initial attempt to deal with a situation internally may be
unsuccessful.
 Escalating the problem and going over the manager’s head or
going outside the organization to deal with the problem.
 Going over an immediate manager’s head can put one’s career in
jeopardy

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 Dealing With Whistle-Blowing Situation

 Assess the Implications of Becoming a Whistle-Blower

 May be fired and may lose the confidence of coworkers, friends,
and even family members
 can expect attacks on their personal integrity and character as
well as negative publicity in the media.
 Live with the Consequences
 Whistle blowers are discredited by coworkers, threatened
 Example:
 Management may attempt to have the whistle blower
transferred, demoted, or fired for breaking some minor rule,
such as arriving late to work or leaving early.
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 Whistle-Blowing Cases

 Energy firm Enron

 In mid-2001, Sherron Watkins, an executive at US energy
company Enron, wrote to its CEO Kenneth Lay warning of
accounting malpractices.
 While Enron bosses didn’t act on her letter, the company filed for
bankruptcy four months later.
 NHAI scam [National Highways Authority of India]
 In 2003, Satyendra Dubey, a project engineer with NHAI, exposed
corruption in the Golden Quadrilateral project in Bihar. He was
shot dead in November 2003 in Gaya. Three persons were given
life term in 2010 for the murder.
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 Whistle-Blowing Cases

 ICICI loan scam

 Arvind Gupta, a shareholder activist, exposed the alleged loan
fraud between the bank’s then CEO Chanda Kochhar and her
family and the Videocon group.
 Kochhar stepped down following the allegations and CBI has now
opened a probe into the matter.

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 Digital Divide

 Is a term used to describe the gulf between those who do and those
who don’t have access to modern information and communications
technology such as:
 Cell Phone
 Personal Computers
 Internet
 Exists not only between more and less developed countries but also
within countries—among age groups, economic classes, and people
who live in cities versus those in rural areas.
 It is also based on standard of Living

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 Digital Divide

 Some of the indicators of standard of living are:

 Average number of calories consumed per person per day
 Average life expectancy
 Literacy rate
 Availability of basic freedoms
 Number of people per doctor
 Infant mortality rate
 Crime rate
 Rate of home ownership
 Availability of educational opportunities

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 Digital Divide

 In India, 20 percent of urban Indians are connected to the Internet,

only 3 percent of rural Indians are connected.

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 Various approaches to reduce Digital Divide

 Education Rate (E-Rate) program

 Low-Cost Computers
 One Laptop per Child (OLPC)
 Classmate +
 Raspberry Pi
 Mobile Phone

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 Education Rate (E-Rate) program

 The Education Rate (E-Rate) program was created through the

Telecommunications Act of 1996.
 E-Rate helps schools and libraries obtain broadband Internet
services
 The program provides cost discounts that range from 20 percent
to 90 percent for eligible telecommunications services, depending
on
 location (urban or rural) and
 Economic need.
 E-Rate reimburses telecommunications, Internet access, and
internal connections providers for discounts
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 One Laptop per Child (OLPC)

 The nonprofit organization One Laptop per Child (OLPC) has a

goal of providing children around the world with low-cost laptop
computers to aid in their education.
 The first version of its laptop, the OLPC XO, was made available to
third-world countries in 2007.
 It was distributed at a cost of around $200.
 The current version of the OLPC is the XO-4 was designed to
require just 1 watt of electricity per hour and sell for $206
 Specifications: 8 GB hard drive and 1.2 GHz processor
 Linux-based operating system and connectivity to internet

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The OLPC XO-3 tablet computer

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 Nepal OLPC Example

 Nepal [Poorest Country with average per capita income $475 USD
 Unemployment rate 46%
 OLPC started in 2008 in two schools
 Within three years, it expanded to 32 schools with a total
enrollment of 3,300 students in grades 2 to 6
 The goal of the program in Nepal is to improve the quality of
education and the access to instructional materials.
 180 teachers are learning how to integrate the technology into
their teaching practices

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 Classmate+

 In 2006, Intel introduced a low-cost laptop called the Classmate

PC.
 Notebook computer cost under $400
 Designed for use in kindergarten through high school classrooms
in developing countries
 4 million Classmate computers have been deployed globally
 10-inch screen, runs the Windows 7 or Linux operating system,
comes with 1 or 2 GB of RAM, has a built-in camera, and has
wireless capability.
 The laptop comes equipped with the Intel Learning Series
Software Suite of educational software
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 Raspberry Pi

 The Raspberry Pi is a small (about the size of a credit card),

inexpensive ($25–$35) computer developed by the Raspberry Pi
Foundation, a United Kingdom charity.
 256 MB or 512 MB of RAM,
 a 700 MHz processor,
 one or two USB ports,
 and an Ethernet port—but no case and no monitor.
 Linux operating system
 Designed to teach computer programming to young children, and
as an alternative, low-cost desktop computer replacement

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 Mobile Phones

 Cell phones come in a wide range of capabilities and costs

 Cheaper than personal computers
 Smartphones replacing low cost computers
 More portable and convenient than the smallest laptop computer
 More extended battery life than laptop computers
 No learning curve required to master the use of a cell phone.
 Basic cell phones require no costly or burdensome applications
that must be loaded and updated
 No technical-support challenges to overcome when using a cell
phone.
 Smartphones plays an important role in bridging the digital divide
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