Affective Rights: A Foundation for Ethical Standards

Current industry practices concerning the protection of rights and privacy has been found wanting. This discussion provides analysis and justification on the realignment needed to re-establish ethical development practices as the norm rather than the exception. Support for change is based on the recognition of human rights, to one extent or another, among the nations of the world. The introduction of Affective Rights is made and shown to have always existed as inalienable. To aid in acceptance and to encourage appropriate development of the new approach, a conceptual system design is outlined as a straightforward strategy using proven technology. To be effective, changes will be required in the way consumers, developers, and regulatory agencies protect these rights, and are made aware of these issues. To that end, it is proposed independent auditing services be created as part of the prototype to verify and validate stakeholder compliance to accepted ethical standards. A flagship pilot program is proposed as a proof of concept.