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The Ethical Dilemma Of Smartphone Manufacturer

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As technology is advancing in this digital age so is the need to protected people’s privacy and to keep their personal information confidential. As Michael McFarland, of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics noted “Reverence for the human person as an end in itself and as an autonomous being requires respect for personal privacy. To lose control of one 's personal information is in some measure to lose control of one 's life and one 's dignity. Therefore, even if privacy is not in itself a fundamental right, it is necessary to protect other fundamental rights” (Michael McFarland, 2012). It is in the light of this that the ethical dilemma of whether smartphone manufacturer has the right to track their customer location is the focus of this paper. People’s personal and sensitive information such as medical records, court records, financial records and geolocation information should be protected and held confidential. Today manufacturer of smartphone embedded beacon in their device which transmits their customer location. The location data collected are notably used as part of providing services or for contextual advertising (Electronic Frontier Foundation, 2016).
The three normative ethical principles chosen to analyze this dilemma are autonomy, confidentiality and respect for persons. There are three important stakeholders involved in this matter, the smartphone user, the smartphone manufacturer and the government. Under autonomy, the individual smartphone user have the

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