What is phone hacking and why is it considered unethical and illegal? Do you think that hacking the

 1. What is phone hacking and why is it considered unethical and illegal? Do you think that hacking the phones of celebrities and non-celebrities should be considered ethically equivalent?

2. Describe the ‘rogue reporter’ defense adopted by the News of the World in response to the phone-hacking allegations and explain why it might be an appealing response to ethical misconduct by a company.

Solution

Question 1

Solution

Phone hacking is the practice of listening in on an unknown phone or device and using the information obtained to get private information. This might contain everything from people's names and phone numbers to credit card numbers or personal information (Waschke, 2017, p. 108). Is it acceptable to hack an unknown number or device if this is deemed ethical phone hacking? Most of the time, this is unlawful because you are violating other people's privacy.

The danger to personal privacy is the primary reason phone hacking is illegal and unethical. You are jeopardizing not only your privacy but also the privacy of others. The fact that you are listening in on other people's conversations may indeed be unlawful in many legal systems, and therefore unethical. This threat to personal privacy depicts how private information can be sold or even stolen by another individual.

The ethical equivalency of hacking celebrities' and non-celebrities phones is predicated on the premise that everyone, no matter what, has a right to privacy. This implies there's no reason to listen in on someone's private talks if they're not a celebrity or a threat to your privacy. When you do anything unethical, it is termed stealing, which is when you steal private information from someone that you do not have the right to. You are infringing on their right to privacy by doing so.

Question 2

Solution

The 'rogue reporter' position of the News of the World phone-hacking incident is that the reporters involved were simply rogue and that no other journalists were there, nor did any other journalists receive the surreptitiously duplicated conversations or texts (Dodd, 2017, para. 3) . However, evidence from the phone-hacking case indicated that, in addition to the rogue reporter, there was at least one other journalist there. This implies that the other journalist may have acquired the messages, meaning that the rogue reporter was not the only one who got the unauthorized phone calls. The fact that a journalist received the calls but did not report on them does not imply that they were fraudulent.

There are various reasons why News of the World's response to ethical misconduct by a company may be acceptable. For starters, this indicates that the company is not to blame for the misbehavior, which may be intriguing to some. Second, this suggests that the misbehavior was not deliberate, which absolves the persons involved of any responsibility. Third, this implies that the wrongdoing was unintentional and not deliberate (Tobah, 2021, para. 3).

References

Dodd, V. (2017, December 1). How phone-hacking scandal grew despite “rogue reporter” claim. The Guardian. Retrieved October 24, 2021, from https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jul/24/phone-hacking-scandal-rogue-reporter-claim

Tobah, B. M. F. (2021, January 22). 3 Reasons Employees Act Unethically. Network for Business Sustainability. Retrieved October 24, 2021, from https://www.nbs.net/articles/3-reasons-employees-act-unethically

Waschke, M. (2017). Personal Cybersecurity. Apress.