Ethical Issues:
One ethical issue is if an employee or customer hacks the system to steal customer information. Our intended design does not track any customer information, but it does provide a connection from a customer’s device to the store’s server where the inventory can be displayed.
Product Liability:
One product liability that must be accounted for is to make sure that all the information of products is accurate. Users may hold IoT Product Tracking accountable if there are malfunctions in how information is stored or sent. A potential problem would be customers entering stores that currently do not have what they are looking for. Another problem could be that store owners would order an incorrect number of products due the system telling them wrong information.
Another product liability that must be accounted for is security and privacy. IoT Product Tracking must make sure that the information it contains is secure and only available to the appropriate people. A potential problem that could occur would be leaked information on an unreleased product’s information that is previously not available to the public.
Social Impact:
Near-field communication (NFC) chips that are not reusable would lead to increased waste (minimal for each store, but it would increase as the number of stores that use product tracking would increase). Same with NFC scanners.