The Ethics Of Photos For Major Principles Of Ethics

Discussion and Analysis

Describe about The Ethics of Photos for Major Principles of Ethics.

Ethics are the major principles that reflect the values as well as norms of a society. In other words, ethics are simply the guidelines for its members for treating each other as per the accepted ideals with a fair approach (Djajadikerta & Trireksani, 2013). The ethical consequences tend to be formed by the nature of service, profit, ownership, representation as well as creativity in the practice of photography (Keyzer et al., 2013). The ethical issues are often confused by the new technological application as well as exacerbated by the political ideology or cultural preferences and the individual ambition and personality. Therefore, this study aims to identify the ethical consequences associated with the digital photography (Scarles, 2013). There are numerous ethical issues in relation to the photography those must be considered in order to evaluate the resolution to address the consequences. The issues that will be the outcome of the evaluation should be taken seriously and mitigated as soon as possible. This contemporary digital era has permitted people in order to gain as well as obtain the access to the digital photographs that belong to others. Online games, Mobile Technology, Social Media, Public Forums as well as the numerous other communications have provide allowance to people for utilizing images in various ways.

ICT allows people for manipulating as well as changing the nature of few images by providing them a distinct purpose and a distinct meaning as well. Therefore, an ethical concern or consequences can be formed in this scenario. (Langmann & Pick, 2014) The most effective victims of such unethical circumstances are the children and mostly the women. Therefore, crucial security issues are encountered those arise from the usage of the photos in the online environments such as the social media like Facebook and many others (Allen, 2012). Therefore, this study highlights all the crucial ethical issues of digital photography such as the ethical concerns of the intangible and intellectual property, images on social media, identity theft, access to the images, ownership and camera access using mobile devices, deception and manipulation using images and other ethical concerns. 

The use of photographs in Digital world

The digital photography is the form of photography that utilizes the cameras containing electronic photodetector arrays for capturing images focused by the lens as reversed to exposure on the photographic film (Van der Rijt & Hoffman, 2014). The captured photographs are stored as well as digitalized as a computer file ready for the further digital printing, publishing, viewing as well as digital processing (Palacios-González, 2015). Photography in the digital world is one of the various forms of digital imaging. The images that are available electronically can be uploaded to the websites or the social networking sites by the user. The user takes a photo with the help of digital camera or the present pictures can be scanned and then uploads the pictures to the internet. There could be various forms of pictures that can be transmitted or shared in the digital world. The Digital photographs are also made by the non-photographic equipment like the radio telescopes and computer tomography scanners. The photographs have huge utilities in the digital world (Quinn & Manning, 2013). The uses of the digital photographs in the digital can be specified with the help of the benefits of the digital photography.

The use of photographs in Digital world

The major advantage of the digital photography is that it is more cost effective than the film photography. On the other hand, digital photography helps in showing the instant previews. Apart from that, the digital photographs are very easy for sharing (Djajadikerta & Trireksani, 2013). People can upload the digital photos to the websites, email those photos to their friends as well as store them on the CDs. apart from being easily stored and shared the technology for storing the photos are also cheaper and are more resilient to corruption. The technology hence has caught the fancy of the people. Most interesting fact regarding the photography in the digital world is that digital photography is more environment-friendly than the film photography. The digital photographs also take lesser space compared to the analog pictures and hence are more compact and user-friendly. The digital photos that have been taken can be easily modified and made more presentable compared to the film photography and hence has become more popular. Apart from being easier to implement and modify the photos are technology is also easier to use, more user-friendly and is also cheaper compared to the analog counterpart. There are several field where the digital photography plays an effective role (Keyzer et al., 2013). Digital photography is very significant in order to sell a particular product, in order to make insurance as well as an accident claim. Digital photographs are very effective in the clinical and medical world. Digital photographs are also very important for the driving license, passports and many other identity proofs (Scarles, 2013). Digital photos are also playing a very important role in the educational uses as well. 

The misuse or the malicious use of the digital photographs has become a crucial issue for people. The digital photographs are very significant in the digital world. However, along with this fact, it has also been seen that the digital photographs are being misused by people against which, an immediate action must be taken as soon as possible (Langmann & Pick, 2014). The malicious use of the digital photos is simply a significant crime. Women as well as the teenagers are the general victims of such crime (Allen, 2012). The malicious uses of images have been rampant in schools and various offices around the world and draw criticism from everyone. Hence the practice which is not at all ethical should be discouraged and the users should be made more aware about the malice involving the digital image sharing over internet. On the other hand, in this digital age, the online platform or the social media are the most general platform through which such malicious use of the pictures are performed by the criminals (Van der Rijt & Hoffman, 2014). Facebook is such an online platform over which such crime of misusing photographs is taken place.

Malicious use of the pictures

In this contemporary digital world, people’s lives have been dominated by the smart-phones that have changed the way people interact and most importantly the way people conduct, commence and end friendships and relationships (Palacios-González, 2015). Hacking is such a criminal process through which the digital photos are misused the most. Image theft from the Facebook account of a user or the other social website is also a crucial misuse of image. The images stolen from the social media websites can be misused by applying those images in the pornography videos (Quinn & Manning, 2013). In case of the business world, politics and other fields, the malicious use of photographs of the political leaders and business leaders can damage the impression of a political leader or party or harm the reputation or the revenue of a business organization (Djajadikerta & Trireksani, 2013). In other words, the malicious use of the photographs can ruin all the aspects of personal and professional lives.

As discussed earlier, the malicious use or the misuse of the photographs in this digital is the most vulnerable activity with the photographs. These malicious uses or the misuses of the digital photographs are completely unethical activity as per the legal aspect (Keyzer et al., 2013). Thus, there are several legal or the ethical issues incorporated with the malicious usage of the pictures in this digital world. Among the legal issues of the misuse of the pictures, security concern is the most important and significant legal concern of this matter (Quinn & Manning, 2013). The malicious use of the digital pictures over the online platforms such as the Social Media like Facebook, Twitter and other online sources can mostly hamper the security or the privacy aspects of the victim’s account (Scarles, 2013). On the other hand, stealing images in the organizations can hamper the ethical aspects of the organizations. Due to the misuse of the pictures in the organizations made by the hackers or the other illegal accesses, it would result in the loss of the employees (Langmann & Pick, 2014). Apart from that, the misuse of the digital photographs in making the pornographic videos is completely illegal while the photos are literally stolen from people’s social media account without their concerns (Allen, 2012). On the other hand, it is also the fact that the pornography is not legal in most of the countries in all over the world. Apart from that, the legal issues of the malicious use of the photographs can create a negative impact on the professional as well as the personal lives of people (Palacios-González, 2015). This illegal access of the photographs can ruin the political, educational as well as business activities due to which the general people are most affected. 

Legal issues involved in malicious use of pictures

There are several ethical issues associated with the digital images, like the manipulation of the images, image theft, plagiarism of the photo, etc. In the digital era of photography photos are captured in every second and shared worldwide between wide ranges of individuals (Barbovschi, Green & Vandoninck, 2013). The introduction of digital images has also introduced various tools for the manipulation of the image, using which the image can be altered. This turned into an ethical issue and the tool can be used to manipulate and influence people. The digital images should be used for the display of the reality but tampering the image is acceptable to certain limits and exceeding the limit can change the originality of the image leading it to an ethical issue (Greensmith & Green, 2015). The digital images can be stolen and sold over the internet without the permission of the owner. The stolen image can be misused and manipulated to destroy the personality of a person or expose negatively to the society.

Plagiarism of the photo is another ethical issue associated with the digital image; it is the situation when someone borrows the idea of another photographer and uses it for his image (Hannay & Baatard, 2011). It is a most common case in the recent times where the photographer steals the idea and tries to perform better and often succeed in doing so. In the fashion industry most of the images on the cover pages of the magazine are altered digitally. But sometimes they are altered drastically making the model looking completely different from the real life (O’Rourke, 2011). Thus are ethical issues regarding the digital photography, the images should be altered or retouched that is acceptable to the society but going beyond the limits makes it an ethical issue.       

Most of the people having children at their home posts images of their children or the persons at the schools posts pictures of the students   on different social media sites.  These pictures can adversely cause embarrassment for someone (Students) in short term or long term (Livingstone, 2014).   The reason behind this is, anyone can edit and misuse   the uploaded photos on the social media. In addition to this the use of photo tagging feature which is used to identify people present in the picture can also   cause breach in the privacy of an individual (Staksrud, Ólafsson & Livingstone, 2013). Therefore, it is important for the individuals and school authorities to protect their children and students from the adverse effects as a result of publishing their picture. To do this the parents can upload pictures that focus on the group activities. In addition to this   parents also consider controlling the availability of the pictures to different group of audiences. Students must not take, use, share and publish images of other   students (Staksrud, Ólafsson & Livingstone, 2013).  Therefore, while posting or sharing the pictures of the children then, two things must be taken care of. The amount of information the photo or the picture providing, the consent of the children. This is mostly about the information that a child wants to or ignores to see it online.   

Today different site and social media platforms are mainly populated with digital images to convey information, messages, and to assist people to understand reality. The images are also used to change the existing mindset of the people. The pictures used all around the world for publicizing, advertising and giving momentum to organizations around the world. In early periods the images are manipulated with the chemicals which were detectable. But today when the pictures are manipulated and are posted on an informative website then it can mislead the viewers (Bobkowski & Smith, 2013). This will consequently lead the viewers to get a wrong and manipulated concept about any incident, object or personality, which has even resulted in many cases of suicide and depression. Today the there are several digital tools are available for manipulation of the pictures. The one that is most famous among the users is the Photoshop created by Adobe. These unintended changes in the pictures can lead to visual deception. In addition to this when the images are manipulated and posted on the different social media platforms with the intention to entertain people may hurt some one’s emotion (Hazell, 2011). Most adversely, if someone creates any image (Trolls) depicting a public figure doing stupid things, then it will be a reason for public unrest created by the followers of that specific personality.

In addition to this if someone creates any image or picture by disrespecting the faith or religious belief of any community then, it will also become the reason of religious riots in any country (Livingstone, 2014).   This happens due to the most special feature of a picture or photograph to generate an immediate emotional response either for an event (for a personality, object) or against any event.

Even though the increasing awareness about the different manipulation techniques is frequently associated with loss of trust on the different news portals and websites, but it is not the correct time to say that the use of the images and photographs to convey messages must be abolished due to the manipulation of the images (Stein, 2009).  

 Here it can be said that as the internet is considered as the major source of knowledge and information, therefore the owners of the websites or the policy makers of the websites and social media platforms must review the different images and photo posts that are uploaded by different users (Hazell, 2011).   This will help in maintaining the faith of people which are challenged by the possibilities of different seamless manipulation techniques.

The images that are posted on the social networking sites are the property of the owner, and the copyright should belong to the creator. The owner of the image have the right to copy, use or distribute the image but when the image is posted on the social networking site the site gets a license to use the image for their commercial activity and can share the image with other individuals also (Hannay & Baatard, 2011). For example, Twitter or Facebook can use the uploaded image of a person for their commercial gains which can be done by obtaining likes and shares of the images.

The photos that are posted on the site can be easily downloaded from the websites, and as has been mentioned in the previous section the images can be used for a variety of malicious practices that can create a problem for the person. The Twitpic service of Twitter is riskier than Facebook; it can access the deleted photos of the users. This means that they can use the image even after the termination of the license (O’Rourke, 2011). Twitter can also give access permission to different users and gain profit from the image without paying the user the profit percentage. Thus the social media users must be aware of the terms and conditions of the site before posting the photo to their websites.

The problem regarding the ownership of the image can be an ethical issue for the social networking media (Green, 2013). The issue should be mitigated such that the users feel free to post their images, and the sharing of the license should be limited to the social networking site, and it should not be redistributed to the other users (Cook, 2010). There is a risk associated with the other users of the social networking that they can misuse the images for performing illegal activities.

There are various security concerns and little advantages associated with the sharing of the photos over the internet. The sharing of the pictures could be in any website or the SNS, which makes the pictures available to the digital environment (Cook Kumar and Unmar-Satiah 2015). The major security concerns are identity theft, sexual predators, stalking, victimization, and surveillance. The lesser known advantages are fame and employment.

The identity theft affects millions of internet users around the world every year. The impact of such act results in loss of countless hours and money to the whole system. The primary reason behind such act is a lack of knowledge regarding the online identity and the growing trust and comfort of people on the around the social networking sites. The lack of standardization and policing is another reason behind such malicious practices. The social networking sites generate revenue by helping in targeted advertisement (Cripps Standing and Fanning 2015). The sites shared the personal information about the user and based upon the information the companies advertise on the home page of the user profile. Since there is a lack of government oversight, user education, and industry standards, the user is not well educated about the issue that is associated with sharing of data over such websites. Hence sharing of sensitive data and photos are rampant and has led to the case involving identity threats. A recent algorithm patented by Google can rate the user influence of such site which will encourage the data sharing of the users.

There are millions of users around the world who use SNS which include the criminal and persons with a criminal mentality. The users of such websites should understand that the photos and the data they share are available to them, and such sensitive information is prone to threats from both internal and external sources equally.

A photo ID card is a document used for identification of the person. The ID card contains basic information like the Photo of the person, name, and address.        The main motive of using the ID cards is for face to face identification and authentication.

Availability of photos at several places can be a serious threat to one’s identity. Fake photo identities have always been a problem to the society, and the availability of photos over the internet make the process of faking even easier (Dhouha et al. 2014). The social networking encourages the user to share maximum information about them, which can help the friends to have a clear picture about ‘What? When? Why?’ about the user. Although the social networking has helped the world to be a very compact place, the shared information can be seen by other internet users too. The sensitive information about the user can be accessed in a jiffy ((Bobkowski & Smith, 2013)). Since the photo ID cards contain only necessary information about the user which can be readily accessed through the Internet, generation of ID cards have become easier.

Hence it can be understood that the validity of ID cards have become big questions. Hence the governments around the world are going for multiple authenticities, which consist of both physical and the digital data (Johnston et al. 2013). The magnetically coded ID cards have become a trend in industries which has both physical and electronic data for authentication.

Geocaching, which is similar to the game of letterboxing, can be used for many purposes such as gaming or making the package available to selective people. This technique is mainly used in the public domain for a treasure hunt. The pictures of the site and the coordinates are shared, and the treasure hunter has to go and search for the package at the indicated location. The pictures, in this case, are used as clues that could be used for guiding the hunter (Management Association ed. 2013).

The photos that are used to indicate the physical location are most important part of Geocaching. It acts as the reference for the treasure hunt, and the hunters are lured by the pictures. The more convincing the pictures are the hunters are more lured towards the location (Tonge et al. 2011). The game that recently has caught the attention of people name ‘Pokémon Go’ uses the same concept for hunting down the Pokémon’s. Geocaching has caught the attention of the criminal as they try to lure the gamers to a remote location and loot them. There had been incidents of crimes that involve shooting (Trial begins in the shooting of boy, 13, geocaching with his father – The Mercury News, 2016). There are various websites that are open to the user which create a community for the players. These communities can be accessed by users from different places, and these users can upload various tasks for the fellow users making the game the perfect recipe for disaster. The criminal can use these platforms to lure the gamers into a trap and do things that have always been condemned (Valli and Hannay 2010). Hence it always suggested that the sources of such treasure hunts be always checked before leaping into it.

Conclusion          

 The credibility of every user can be guaranteed, any information in such hand should be treated as a threat. The networking site such as Instagram allows users to upload picture instantaneously thus showing the location and picture of the user, through which the general idea about the user can be grasped and used against them. As it has been aptly said that a picture is worth thousands of words and such information in wrong hand is a serious threat. In this article, the various threats that an internet user faces due to sharing of images and photos on the internet has been discussed in detail. The various aspects that have been discussed in the segment are publishing photos in the digital world its impact on the user and the consequences. In the next section, the various malicious uses of the picture have been discussed in detail for making the user more aware of the consequences that they can suffer due to sharing of images in various internet platforms. The next section contains the impact of malicious practices on the defaulter have been presented to prevent the users of the internet from committing such crimes. Then the ethical issues of sharing the different types of the picture have been discussed, which will help in understanding the impact of sharing pictures with the community.

The subsequent sections deal with the impact of sharing the picture of children and the ownership of the pictures in case of deceased users. Sharing of the picture of children can have an impact on the child as the future of the children is yet to unfold. In this scenario, the rights of the owner have been discussed. Finally, the security aspects of the pictures have been shared, which contains the issue related to sharing of pictures in SNSs, the need for a better security measure to prevent identity threats and the present genre of games that uses Geocaching to lure the user into traps.

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