Ethical issues in international software development

But , in case of any dispute arising out of such excesses , the issue gets highlighted in the media , which brings bad publicity for the multinational corporation as well as the host country

When companies entrust the important details about their clients to BPOs in some other countries , that decision runs the risk of exposing those clients to people in other countries . This could result in trampling on the privacy of the customers . A study cited in the Washington Post has pointed out that BPO employees who are laid off or leave their

jobs for better opportunities , quite often secretly take along proprietary data as well (Krebs , 2009 . The report indicates that about 60 percent of those leaving the job steal the important data of the company and its clients . The data being taken included e-mail lists , non-financial business information , customer contact lists , employee records , and financial information

There have been instances , when credit card details of a customer were misused by the BPO workers . A report by KPMG on `data security and privacy in the Indian industry ' indicates that the top management in a number of BPO companies are finding it challenging to `drive the importance of security and privacy of information down to every level of the organization (KPMG , 2009 . Such concerns often lead to question marks on the decisions of multinational corporations ' to outsource the data and records of their customers to untrustworthy people . This presents ethical challenge for the Indian IT industry as well , as the IT industry has to allay the concerns of their clients on two counts First , by providing technologically advanced and updated services , and second by ensuring that the all important data is in safe hands

Outsourcing to emerging economies is also believed to be resulting in international exploitation (Harland et al , 2005...