Today in western societies more people are employed collecting, handling and distributing information than in any other occupation. Millions of computers inhabit the earth and many millions of miles of optical fibre, wire and air waves link people, their computers and the vast array of information handling devices together. Our society is truly an information society, our time an information age.

Information forms the intellectual capital from which human beings craft their lives and the basis on which organizations operate. However, the building of intellectual capital is vulnerable in many ways. For example, intellectual capital is impaired whenever you lose personal information without being compensated for it, when you are precluded access to information which is of value to you, when you have revealed information you hold intimate, or when you find out that the information upon which your very existence depends is in error. These are the ethical issues around digital information and the information age must deal with these threats to society.

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