This research paper addresses the following course outcomes:

• make informed decisions about the advantages and disadvantages and ethical considerations of information technology
• identify, assess, and mitigate the security risks to PII (personally identifiable information)

This assignment has two goals: 1) to have students increase their understanding of the concept of Protecting Personally Identifiable Information (PPI) and other ethical issues related to the use of information technology through research, and 2) to help students learn to correctly use the tools and techniques within MS Word to format a research paper, including using MS Word's citation tools. These skills will be valuable throughout students academic careers. The paper will require a title page; two to three pages of content with incorporation of a minimum of three external resources from credible sources, and a works cited/reference page. A list of topics will be provided from which students can choose.

Topics for Research Paper

1. Personally Identifiable Information (PII)
2. Social Engineering
3. Employee Monitoring
4. Content Filtering
5. Information Privacy
6. Electronic Medical Records
7. Biometrics (in terms of ethical and privacy issues)
8. Identity Theft
9. Use of Cookies
10. Privacy Laws related to Information Technology use
11. Intellectual Property Rights; Copyright

The paper will require a title page, pages of content with incorporation of a minimum of 3 external resources from credible sources, and a References page.