Group items tagged

This article deals with the situation of Electronic Health Records in relation to Health Care. The use of this Information Technology according to the article has done very little to improve the health care service and those who have health care. Records and studies have proven that the use of this software has be associated with western states. Stanford researches have shown that the increase use of Electronic Health Records has not improved the quality of heath care services. This is caused because of the software's highly complicated software that is currently being interacted and used with doctors that aren't well trained with the system. Because of this lack of knowledge and skill of the system, doctors could not use all of the capabilities of the system. Overall, the article argues that the government should focus more on the quality of the Electronic Health Record software in relation with how doctors approach it, rather than just getting and replacing Health records with Electronic technology. There are a variety of stake holders in relation to the Electronic Health Record software. Those doctors who do not know how to fully interact with the system are the main stakeholders. The lack of training and the lack of full interaction with the system does not allow for the doctors to use the software to it's full capabilities. Another stakeholder would have to patience who have their medical records on these Electronic software systems. They have to rely on the doctors using the software to keep their data and to keep their records to date. However, another main stakeholder would be the government who is currently trying to create a better health care system by providing doctors with the Electronic Health Records. Because the government has good intentions to create a better health care system and a better medical situation for patience, they are being affected when they are unaware that this software is not being used to its full capabilities. Because of this,

the health care system is not changing or becoming better. Social and Ethical issues are presented in the Article. The first Social and Ethical Issue presented would have to be Reliability. The government is relying on these Electronic Health Record systems in order to create a better health care service for those in the United States. However, this reliability is currently being challenged when doctors and those who work in relation to the IT system are not able to work with it to its full capabilities because of its challenging and highly technical operations. Another Social and Ethical issue that arises is digital divide. The government is in pursuit to allow and get all doctors to use this system in order to remove the divide and create a better health care service. Solutions are given in the article, where current researches at Stanford say that they should focus on training those doctors to operate their systems or the Electronic Health Records to create a better health care service.

The Government censorship has expanded outside of China.

This news item meets the requirements for ITGS because it includes all strands of the ITGS Triangle: Social/Ethical Issues, Application to Specific Scenarios and IT Systems. The Social and Ethical issue includes security, the digital divided and equality of access and surveillance.The government has decided to block certain videos from youtube, or articles from other websites regarding the negativity of the country. In other words, citizens and residents of that country won't be allowed to access "negative news" about the country they're currently living in. The digital divide and equality of access is relevant in this case because many other countries can see what different countries have blocked, meaning that for example, a person living in Germany that was not allowed to access information over "neo-Nazi content" may find information that was banned in Thailand about "the Thai king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, with feet near his head." Surveillance also is considered a social impact because the government is monitoring the actions of others, in terms of what they're posting online. The application to specific scenarios would be politics and government since the government is controlling the use of information through censorship. In all, the article explains what the government has controlled over the internet in company with Google, which includes Blogger, YouTube, AdWords, Google Maps and others. But the fact that the government is isolating the amount of information does not suffice the statement that people have the right to have their internet freedom.

This is really interesting! I didn't know about this digital censorship around the world. I knew about how most information is censored in different places in the world, but not in regards to places such as Germany. There are various methods of censorship and more ways than one of being able to get past them; one example is the use of proxies. Again this strikes me as something absurd. I have never heard of digital censorship in a country such as Germany, where there are so many sources for access to data. Why the government would ban such information I still cannot fathom, but the impacts that this arouses are serious, especially in regards to surveillance and the digital divide and equality of access. But ultimately, this was a very captivating post.

Google has came up with a tool in which people can view the government's censorships. It keeps track of how many times the government has requested for Google to take down certain information due to privacy.

Strand 1: 1.2: Security: Google isn't secure if they put statistics and a counter on how many times they were asked to take information down. 1.7 surveillance: Governments don't want to be monitored and therefore, many of them refuse to share whether or not their censorship demands. 1.3 Privacy and anonymity: Google created this tool which keeps track of how many different countries would want their government "secrets" and policies to be taken down; there fore, google does respect that to a certain extent. Although, many countries do make a huge number of requests for their data to be taken down. Strand 2: 2.6:This Google transparency tool can be used to view the demands and requests of data been removed by specific countries and their governments. Stakeholders: Google is the organization that created such a tool. And it's main purpose was to show the world that censorship and privacy is asked for by many. The governments around the world are asking for either data requests to be taken off, or data requests based on their country from the transparency tool. Strand 3: 3.4 Internet: it plays the main role of how Google puts up too much information and due to privacy and surveillance issues, the IT system is shown as a map that organizes the lack of information that can be seen by viewers and the amount of information that are taken off due to requests.

Please go back and "cache" this page. I see by the URL that this is a blog. Although the lines between bloggers and journalists are somewhat blurred these days, blogs are usually opinion pieces and not considered journalism in the same way as edited news items. For example, this summer, you blogged on the NY Times site. That wasn't "news" it was your opinion about what you read about what was happening.

"EVEN the most curmudgeonly critic would have to admit the one great benefit of e-government: it comes twinned with i-government, where i stands for information. As readers under the age of 30 may be only dimly aware, before the internet age simply getting hold of information on any aspect of government was often far from straightforward. "

WikiLeaks has led to several problems related to privacy and security of government data. The legal debate weighs whether the posting of this data is against Constitutional laws, but many others in the Government fear the magnitude of this problem. Some people ask, what would the founding fathers have done....but the world of the internet is a whole other ball field. The latest on the WikiLeaks threats claim that Assange still has more documents which were uploaded onto the website. However, the files are encrypted. Many people have access to these files, but because they are in cipher text, they cannot be read. As soon as Assange, or anyone who has access to the information publishes the Public Key, the encrypted documents will be decoded, using the same software that Assange used to encrypt it. If these documents have material in them that could threaten national security, then the USFG will have a stronger case against Assange on the basis of a privacy breach. Because of the high security, and the reliability of the encryption software, these documents have little value at the moment. The Obama Administration is clearly keeping an eye on the situation, because they wish to protect the privacy of the documents, but also because they want to find a way to take down the documents before they create damage. However, there is an extreme level of difficulty in decrypting the data, which is protected by a mathematical algorithm specific to the software that Assange initially used. The intersection of the privacy of the Government and the reliable security that Assange used comes to show that the IT world is constantly expanding, beyond the prediction of one business, or even the Government. But these Assange and the USFG aren't the only ones involved. Many people around the world are trying to attain access to these documents, primarily in the US in order to understand national secrets that have been held back from the public. The internet as a form of media has transfo

continued.....transformed the notion of what is private and what isn't, and clearly now more than ever privacy needs to be secured. Maybe the USFG should look into some high security protocols such as encryption, and their data files wouldn't be intercepted and posted on the internet.

This article raises a number of issues related to e-government and the use of mobile phones for government transactions. It appears that India embarked ahead of more developed nations in the West to go electronic. The problem of access to phones and widespread illiteracy is discussed and raises some important concerns.

"According to Cary Coglianese, an American e-government expert, imagining that online consultation will breathe new life into democracy "is a bit like imagining that giving automobile owners the ability to download technical manuals and order car parts online would turn a great number of them into do-it-yourself mechanics". Greater involvement by experts may make for more sensible rules, but it will not turn the system of public administration on its head. In short, badly managed organisations with computers will stay badly managed. That has been the lesson from private business, and it equally applies to the public sector, where e-government has barely begun to scratch the surface of what is possible. That is reason for disappointment, but also for hope. "

"Local governments, like many businesses, are struggling with a data glut. Agencies collect huge amounts of information about topics as diverse as building permits, potholes, Medicaid cases and foster-child placements. Technology, according to computer experts and government officials, can be a powerful tool to mine vast troves of government data for insights to streamline services and guide policy."

"A PRODIGIOUS amount of money has been spent worldwide on putting government services online, but the results so far have been hard to measure and often disappointing (see chart 2). Accenture, a consultancy that pioneered the business of selling technology services to government, has been publishing reports on the subject since 2000. The titles give a flavour of the industry's struggle to balance promise and performance. In 2001 it was "Rhetoric vs. Reality: Closing the Gap", followed by "Realising the Vision" in 2002 and "Engaging the Customer" in 2003. "

"Rewired State runs hackdays to let developers show government what is possible and government to show developers what is needed. "

Please use this bookmark to post your reflections. Using a Paper 2 style approach, CRITERION A) identify the IT system and describe the issues. Identify the relationship of the major stakeholders to the issues. CRITERION B) Describe step-by-step how the system works and describe how the system is related to the issue(s). CRITERION C) Evaluate the impacts on society -- both positive and negative or from differing stakeholder's P.O.V. CRITERION D) Evaluate the efficacy of a solution to the problem.

There is another issue along with this involving the ability of researchers to have full access to the information about anyone. Many people want to maintain their right to privacy, but others argue that this could lead to new knowledge about diseases, and the development of new medicines. For those who are afraid of risking their privacy, there are standards developed in order to protect them. Their information, such as SSNs are encoded for security reasons and the DNA part of the project is voluntary, and not imposed. However, ethicists are still afraid of this database. They claim that the future of DNA is a valuable thing because it can predict the probability of diseases, life expectancies, etc. But all copies can be made available to the FBI, schools, etc. at the time of birth. For the Biotech Industry, this is seen as a huge advantage because people an be tested for hundreds of diseases. The awareness of the disease is a great thing, because it could lead to early prevention. However, the system is faulty because it sometimes doesn't provide certainty of a disease and it limits a person's privacy. Other times, there is no cure for the disease, so the patient cannot do anything even if they know. In relation to this, there also will arise severe psychological impacts of a person knowing that they have the possibility for getting a life threatening disease. If this is a disease that will affect them later on in life, it would be detrimental for a person to live their life without the hope of a prosperous future. A solution to this problem could be giving patients the choice of knowing or not.

Criterion A - The IT system is the DNA database containing information about the genetic past, present, and future of the patients. The primary issues associated with this database are of privacy and anonymity. These issues arise when patients, who are one of the major stakeholders, feel that that the information in these databases shouldn't be accessible to others, or anyone for that matter. While some believe this is private information, others believe that the information should not be known by anyone because of the ethical issues associated with knowing what will come in the future. Criterion B - The medical database is a relational database meaning that it establishes relationships between different tables in the database. The smallest building blocks of a relational database are items. Items are individual pieces of information in tables. These items are organized into fields and records. Fields are columns in a table that that represent different categories of information. Records are rows that represent all the information for a specific patient. At the cross-section of a particular record and field lies the item associated with a specific piece of information related to the specified patient. These tables are related to each other through links which are established by unique primary keys assigned to each patient. This system is related to the issue of privacy because the information contained within it is considered by many to be privileged and access to it should be very limited or altogether eliminated. Criterion C - The impacts of such a database on society are varied. Some people are very against the entire idea of a genetic database because of its ethical concerns. When people have their blood analyzed for DNA, they are giving up their genetic make-up. The information that can be obtained from such tests is considered by many to be privileged, and by others to be completely unethical in every way. Often people are against very private medical

"Obama Signs Executive Order Limiting Text Messaging for On-The-Job Government Employees Monday, November 23rd, 2009 On September 30, 2009, the Obama administration ordered a ban on texting for all government employees while driving on the job or driving government-owned vehicles. Studies show that talking on a cell phone causes almost 25% of all car accidents. Already, seven states have banned any cellphone use while driving, 18 states have banned texting while driving, and 17 states have made it illegal for school bus drivers to use cellphones while driving. This is all great news for U.S. drivers since last year distracted drivers caused nearly 6,000 deaths in this country alone. The administration is considering additional restrictions on cellphone use by rail, truck and bus drivers."

The main stake holders in this articles are the Military, FBI, the government and all foreign surveillance. The technology involved is the military database. It has many important details and high level data that would be harmful if in wrong hands. The government needs to secure the data base to avoid in foreign invasion on their database hence this would pose a serious threat to the nations security. The first step in securing the government database is to take it off the main internet and hence there would be no way to access it unless if an individual or an organization had authorization to it.

"O SEE how frustrating the wrong kind of e-government can be, look at "Choose and Book", the flagship project of Britain's £12.4 billion ($25 billion) programme "Connecting for Health"-the world's biggest non-military government computerisation programme. The aim is bold and inspiring: to allow patients in the National Health Service (NHS), advised by their doctors, to choose the treatment they want, and book an appointment when they want it. "

This is likely NOT relevant for CS 2010

This article Talks about Research in motion, the company of blackberry in talks with India about the services that the phones provide

This article meets the standards of ITGS. From assessing this article through strand 1 we see that their are a number social and ethical conditions to be considered in this story. Security is a major issue here, RIM's encryption is so secure that not even powerful governments can't crack. This brings up the issue of security because countries like India are worried that this secure network can be abused by the terrorists. This brings up the issue of the digital divide and equality of access. This issue is brought up because India was threatening to disrupt Blackberry access because India did not have access to some features that blackberry users from other countries have. This leads to another problem, Reliability and integrity. Since RIM's network is the most secure network that even the most powerful governments can't crack, because of this many Corporations use Blackberry, RIM fears that if they(RIM) allow governments get a little more access, they will lose their reliability of their majority steak holders. This brings up the number of steak holders, the steak holders are RIM. their customers, India, and other middle eastern countries who are threatening to cut off service due to inequality of access. The IT systems that are mentioned are cellphones, and RIM's network. The applications that apply to the article are Business and employment, and governments control and use of information.

Nick originally posted this article, but did not cache it.

"Everywhere you look, the quantity of information in the world is soaring. According to one estimate, mankind created 150 exabytes (billion gigabytes) of data in 2005. This year, it will create 1,200 exabytes. Merely keeping up with this flood, and storing the bits that might be useful, is difficult enough. Analysing it, to spot patterns and extract useful information, is harder still. Even so, the data deluge is already starting to transform business, government, science and everyday life (see our special report in this issue). It has great potential for good-as long as consumers, companies and governments make the right choices about when to restrict the flow of data, and when to encourage it."

"THE internet, argues Kim Cameron, who works as "Identity Architect" at Microsoft, "was built without a way to know who and what you are connecting to". That is bad enough in the private sector, where the only thing at stake is money. For dealing with government, it is potentially catastrophic. Technology can-just about-tell how an internet user got online. It can check the authenticity of passwords and logins, and validate smart cards or biometric checks. But such data, even if encrypted, can be stolen, borrowed, guessed or intercepted."