Roles & Issues in the IT industry

Discover the numerous career roles and opportunities in the IT industry and several issues that the IT industry entails.

Roles & Issues in the IT industry

Roles in IT Industry

Often in different tasks or pieces of work require varying set of skillset, experiences and individuals so that any produced work is done properly and professionally. Since new organizations such as startups or small companies tend to do more with less, hence they have to ensure that their employees are not burdened and thus pulling their weight becomes important. Therefore, defining of roles and responsibilities provides clarity, alignment and as well as expectations for those that are executing the work or those that are to be assigned to a certain piece of work

Just like any other industry, IT industry also has many roles and various opportunities for people with different skillset or mindsets. Its job titles can vary significantly from one company to another.

Below is list of some of the most common roles or job titles in IT industry. Each job title entails a lot of information which is out of the scope of this article. In this article however we are just going to look at a short overview of each role.

Note: IT has a broad list of job titles and roles. Some roles may be left out of this article to keep its length short but some of the most popular and most sought-after roles are mentioned.

Information Technology Leadership

Leadership in IT deals with individuals that are technically strong as well as have and superior management skills.

Software/Application Developer

Database Administrator

A database administrator or DBA is an individual specialized in maintaining, designing and working with database systems.

Information Technology Analysts

IT analysts are responsible for designing business-oriented solutions for collecting and analyzing market data, customer input and client information.

Cloud Computing Engineers

Cloud computing engineers usually deal with defining, designing, building and maintaining of solutions based on cloud-based infrastructure from cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.

Social Issues in IT Industry

With the emergence of IT there has been a major shift in the way the society operates and how social life works. There have been both positive and negative effects of this shift, however these negative issues were generated as a direct result of IT development. Following is a list of some of the most common social issues generated due to technological advancement:

Cyber Crime

Criminals may exploit weaknesses within computers and computer networks to enter and steal or use data to blackmail and extort money from companies.

Character Defamation

The internet is having numerous web sites where someone could intentionally or accidentally leave a potentially defamatory comment or post. A few of these locations are social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Theft of Identity

Fraud is another negative activity that has been able to evolve in the wake of easily accessible computers and the internet. In identity theft, personal details of innocent people are harvested by a third party so that they can be used for malicious purposes. This includes carrying out illicit online transactions and other damaging activities that can have serious ramifications.

Privacy Issues

Protecting privacy in a world of social media where so much information about us is public is extremely difficult if not impossible. There have been data disasters involving mistaken identities, data mix-ups, and doctored data which adversely affect people's lives, including driving and credit records.

Health & Fitness

We are living increasingly sedentary lifestyles, because computers are removing the need for us to physically carry out many tasks, as well as keeping us bound to one spot throughout our working days as well as any free days or vacations.

Ethical Issues in IT Industry

Ethics is defined as, “the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation.”. In the IT industry where there are no comprehensive standards in place, with the emergence of new technologies, ethical and legal issues are also arising increasing thus demanding more efforts and attention towards policing them and reaching resolutions to prevent any of these issues. Every now and then we see new scandals about ethics and the tech industry, hence it’s very important for a consumer of Information Communication Technology (ICT) to know of its implications.

The following are some of the most common and pressing issues in the IT industry:

Privacy

With the vast amount of information being exchanged with the help of IT. Now anybody from any part of the world, at any time can exchange information with others. The large amount of data that has now spread throughout the digital world including private information as well as public information, the risk of that data being accessed by unintended sources is always present. To what extent the data may be disclosed and violation of privacy takes place is a huge concern due to it’s potential.

Plagiarism

With the freedom of information exchange through different mediums. Over such data the establishment of ownership is a very difficult task and very hard to control as things can be easily copied and pasted without anyone’s intervention or policing. This makes intellectual property very hard to protect.

Security & Hacking

Security breaches and exploitation of backdoors present in digital systems and networks may allow unauthorized personnel or more accurately known as hackers, to get their hands-on sensitive data such as personal identification information, stolen identities, bank credentials, confidential information or classified govt secrets. Websites can be hacked; malware and spyware can make its way into a user’s computer and gain access to data.

Piracy

The illegal use and theft of software and content available through different digital mediums, is also a very serious problem. It is estimated that nearly 50% of all programs on PCs are pirated copies. This is very serious issue for corporations in particular and can significantly damage profit margin. Following are some key piracy statistics from datapro.net:

Legal Issues in IT Industry

As the IT industry rises to newer heights, many companies from small companies to large companies often overlook the regulations or the structure placed by the government and the regulatory bodies. This oversight may sometimes cost companies a lot. Today’s privacy laws and regulation laws lack consistency and transparency.

The following are some of the key areas are as follows:

Legal Issues surrounding AI

Automation and AI has been disrupting every single industry, from manufacturing to clerical work. With the automation and capabilities of AI increasing exponentially, more and more jobs are lost. According to a McKinsey report, some 375 million jobs worldwide will be lost by 2030. Except jobs there are also many other issues surrounding AI that need to be considered and regulated. Take self-driving cars for example, if an AI-powered car is faced with the split-second dilemma of hitting either a woman and a stroller, a homeless man, or a business executive, who writes the algorithm that makes that choice? Who decides who gets to live or die? Should it be computer programmers? This is where we need regulation and government intervention and proper AI regulatory frameworks need to be in place to prevent any issues.

Evolution of Copyright Laws

Copyright laws have been changing and evolving over time, the most recent expansion of the internet copyright regulation has raised many controversies. In the IT world where internet has enabled individuals to record their ideas in words, images, videos and sounds and then release it to the world, in this kind of environment copyright laws and regulations are very crucial. Right now, if you upload something you've made, and then someone else steals it and posts to their site then it's on you, the individual, to figure that out and to try to get it taken down. But with more regulation and the recent evolution of the copyright laws, the company who infringes will be held responsible as they did not take proper measures to avoid copyright infringement.

Consumer Rights

Consumer rights, established under the laws of many countries, include:

The above laws were put in place to prevent the suppliers from exploiting consumers. These laws also prevent retailers to gain an unfair competitive advantage over other retailers in order to protect consumers. The above laws make are critically applied even-handedly to online service providers and their competitors for consumer protection.

Customer Privacy

With the rise of e-commerce, social networks and online streaming, large amount of publicly as well as privately available data, is gathered, transferred and consumed over the internet. In such a fast-evolving environment, where online service providers have to adopt a business model where they can facilitate data collection and along with it provide services for free or cheap. Such services may be funded by advertising income where personal information is gathered, analyzed and then used for monetization purposes. Regulatory bodies worldwide have recommended to such service providers to adopt more transparency and obtain a user’s consent before using their data.

References

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