Ethical and Societal Challenges of Information Technology (The Pakistani Scenario)

The whole world is now totally engrossed in the Information revolution. With the advent of the Internet and related Technologies, all barriers have been broken down and the world has become one large Global Village where doing business across the world has become as simple as doing business with ones neighbors living next door. Information Revolution has dramatically magnified our ability to acquire, manipulate, store and communicate information and conduct business though hyper-technology and open systems architecture of the Internet. While this provides all the facilities to conduct business smoothly and quickly it has also created a threat to the users of Hyperlink to engage in ethical and unethical business practices electronically anywhere in the world. There are Ethical Philosophies that most religions talk about, ethical values and models that guide the ethics of conducting business. These values apply to Information even more so, as now information is very easily available and mis-utilization of this information leads to very serious consequences. This paper looks at the Ethical and societal dimensions of IT and ethical principles governing IT and finally how IT is effecting the lives of everyday man, especially in the privacy realm. Pakistan is practically in the infancy of global e-business thus faces this threat even more then the other countries. This paper first looks at the ethical and unethical issues and then how the Pakistani are dealing with it. What are the youth learning and how are they spending most their leisure time.