Dogs are known for their incredible ability to detect odours, extracting them from a “complex” environment and recognising them. This makes sniffer dogs precious assets in a broad variety of security applications. However, their use is subject to some intrinsic restrictions. Dogs can only be trained to a limited set of applications, get tired after a relatively short period, and thus require a high turnover. This has sparked a drive over the past decade to develop artificial sniffer devices—generally known as (...) “chemical sniffers” or “electronic noses”—able to complement and possibly replace dogs for some security applications. Such devices have been already deployed, or are intended to be deployed, at borders, airports and other critical installation security checkpoints. Similarly to dogs, they are adopted for detecting residual traces that indicate either the presence of, or recent contact with, substances like drugs and explosives. It goes without saying that, as with sniffer dogs, the use of artificial sniffer devices raises many sensitive issues. Adopting an ethical and legal perspective, the present paper discusses the privacy and data protection implications of the possible deployment of a hand-held body scanning sniffer for screening passengers at EU airport security checkpoints. (shrink)

Ethical networks are an emerging form of social alliance based on collaboration between organizations that share a common ethical commitment. Grounded in a theoretical framework of virtue-based business ethics and focusing on nonprofit alliances, this study investigates the virtuousness of ethical networks; that is, how they trigger virtuous practices in their member nonprofit organizations. Adopting a qualitative grounded theory approach, the study focuses on one of the largest Italian ethical networks of nonprofit organizations operating in the social care sector. The (...) findings show that shared ethical values and religious beliefs are positively associated with ethical network building. Based on these findings, a circular model of virtuousness is proposed in which ethical networks foster virtuous practices among their members at four levels: (1) the strategic orientation level, (2) the institutional level, (3) the organizational level, and (4) the relational level. At each of these levels, ethical networks foster a habituation to virtues and the propagation of virtuous behaviors among their members. Theoretical, practical, and social implications of the research findings are discussed. (shrink)

Biometric identification is thought to be less vulnerable to fraud and forgery than are traditional forms of identification. However biometric identification is not without vulnerabilities. In a ‘spoofing attack’ an artificial replica of an individual’s biometric trait is used to induce a system to falsely infer that individual’s presence. Techniques such as liveness-detection and multi-modality, as well as the development of new and emerging modalities, are intended to secure biometric identification systems against such threats. Unlike biometrics in general, the societal (...) and ethical issues raised by spoofing and anti-spoofing techniques have not received much attention. This paper examines these issues. (shrink)