Whereas Information Technology (IT) has given us freedom to do things in more easy and flexible ways on one hand, on the other, it also given us some ethical issues to look into. One such issue is that of privacy. People's perceptions on the issues of privacy and IT vary and it is important to assess how they vary. Perceived ethicality is not a normative fact, the perception varies from situation to situation and individual to individual. It is a function of how the individual constructs the social situation. There are many factors that influence how the individual constructs and perceives a situation. This paper empirically assesses the role of three such factors, respondent position (as a target or an actor), peer beliefs/perception of the situation, and the tendency of an individual to give in to peer pressure. Responses of 125, undergraduate and postgraduate students, on a structured questionnaire are analyzed. Results show a significant difference in the perception of respondents when they are target and when they are actors. Peer perception, is related to perceived ethicality and peer pressure moderates the relationship between peer perception and perceived ethicality though only for situation where the respondent is the actor.
ethics, IT enabled, privacy, peer pressure
