Ethical Mobility Policy Development and Sustainability

Policy development for ethical mobility and mobile ecosystem sustainability is about protecting

all the stakeholders of an organization – employees, customers, patients, suppliers, etc. and

mitigating the risks associated with potential security breaches to valuable data. The reason that

security is a major topic in the discussion of mobility technologies is that today’s mobile devices

are so powerful that we all, from the elementary school student to the leaders of the land have

quickly learned to use them to facilitate our hearts’ most private desires – desires that we never

wish to go public, whether it be whom we find attractive or what our next military target will be.

Ideally everyone wants perfect security to keep our secrets secret, and when individuals bring

their secrets into a networked system, that system must be managed appropriately for purposes

of mitigating security risks. As is the case with wired networks, every system is protected as

much as is possible, given the limits of technology and budget. However, every network system

connecting technical devices together is also connecting the operators of those devices

together. The operators are already socially connected with a hierarchy. Students have

teachers, who have principals, who have superintendents. Employees have managers, who

have mid-level managers, who have executive managers, who answer to CEOs and

chairpersons – the higher the level of hierarchy, the greater the access to information. In an

ethical society, everyone respects the power and responsibility of their hierarchal position and

avoid abusing their powers. When the society has strong, clear laws that are quickly and

effectively enforced, everyone has even more incentive to at least act legally, but perhaps not

ethically. Networks that shares everyone’s data from machine to machine or mobile device to

mobile device and around the planet have IT professionals, who carry the keys.

It could be said that the security of the entire system is in the hands of two people: whoever is at

the top of the client’s organization and whoever is at the top of the IT solutions provider. Here is

where mobile system policy for stakeholder protection is needed. Organizational leaders must

take final responsibility and ensure that third-party providers or other authorized personnel do

not take advantage of data access by using their keys in appropriately. The executive must

trust the IT provider, but more importantly, the executive must trust in their own ability to make

good decisions and protect digital assets and sensitive stakeholder data. Therefore, the

processes of vendor selection and vendor management practices are critical components in

mobility policy.

Another critical perspective is the IT provider and its tremendous access powers, making it

perhaps the only entity with ability to observe an organizational executive going rouge – that is,

abusing powers of authority to self-deal and/or purposely sabotage or steal intellectual property.

Therefore, the IT provider must also have a well-understood ethical obligation to observe,

capture, investigate and report any client actions which may be unlawful.

Sustainability of a well-constructed, ethical mobility system must be planned and prepared for

changes to the environment are inevitable. Two factors are the most critical: Mobile technology

is rapidly changing, becoming more powerful every day; and Client and IT company personnel

are frequently moving within their respective organizations. The system will lose all protection if

something, either technology or staffing, changes enough to create a leak in the security.

Therefore, the mobile policy must be developed with careful consideration to address all areas

of strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat (SWOT).

For example, let us consider the example of an MDM Platform provider in a third world nation –

which may have weak national laws or perhaps even an openly corrupt government – offering a

really attractive product to an multinational resource extracting company operating in that

nation. There might even be contractual coercion for the multinational to employ the local MDM

Platform provider. In good faith, the multinational agrees to purchase and use the provider’s

MDM Platform for all their employees and contractors’ employees working within that country.

Unfortunately, a year later they lose their resource extraction contract to a local company that

now seems to have all of their proprietary information – a result of unseen leaks in the MDM

Platform. The multinational has now been exposed to serious data security risk with hefty

financial implications. Proper planning in this scenario would include SWOT analysis to consider

the political, legal, social, cultural, technological, and economic implications of using foreign

third-party vendors.

Ethical considerations are a necessary party of the ongoing evolution in Mobility. Consider the

evolution of Facebook policy, which began with allowing third-party developers of Facebook

Applications access to the user’s basic information and in many cases by default, access to

status updates, photos, friend lists, birthday, religion, hobbies, etc. However, the public outcry

for greater privacy and controls influenced changes for improved user protection.

For example, with each major release of Apple’s iOS system, protection of third-party account

information has transitioned from being the sole responsibility of the each app, and said

developer, to a process which the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is now able to

provide an option where they hold that data in a single place for multiple apps to access at any

time. Data holding allows for greater protection of the user’s information, and an easier way for

developers to help protect and access that information.

Bottom Line: There are too many valuables at risk for mobility management policymakers to not

consider the ethical implications on all aspects of IT mobility and stakeholder data.

Conclusion

In summary, ethical considerations affect all aspects of Mobility including OTA, Network

Infrastructures, Mobile Device Management, Security, and Troubleshooting. IT and security

policies are needed to help prevent unethical practices through effective implementation of a

strict policy or by physically and logically locking a system to prevent malicious behavior. The

fact is that the world we live in is fiercely competitive and mobile technology is a powerful new