Information Technology is a field of applying the science of information handling to man-made tools to ease and enhance the life of people.
However, somehow, it seems we are missing the mark. While there are great achievements and value-add through information technology, there are concerns on its true value due to risks stemming from fundamental flaws in the practice of handling information.
It ranges from risks of inaccuracies to information abuse seen as privacy and ownership concerns to the public's eye. These are due to either ignorance or malicious intent. Whether it is over exposing protected data or creating false representation on reality. Either way, this rough use of technology is decaying, rather then enhancing, people's quality of life.
We can, and should, be appreciative and grateful for the excellent abilities and tools we have today. Some of which we take for granted. But we have lost direction as indicated by lower trust levels and stronger cries for legislation.
The fundamental problem is that the vision for these technological innovations does not focus on benefiting human life as much as they are about demonstrating stronger capabilities to eliminate effort and control of people over information. This has the additional unsettling consequence of a narrowing set of entities which are able to control and possibly manipulate information.
In order to move in the right direction, every technology built must consider, at design time, the requirements and implications to ALL stakeholders of the information being handled by the technology.
To discern the issue of poor information handing we must adopt an open and inclusive framework which, by design, shifts and retains the power of decisions to the entities who should own and impact the information based on ethical and moral principles.
This is not only the right thing to do, but also the best long term economic strategy for information technology!
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