Problem
You find yourself in a situation of needing to get information from a coworker's computer when that person was out of the office. You know you're not supposed to access others' computers, but this coworker is a friend of yours and she has shared her password with you in the past. When you login, you discover that your coworker has been saving customer's credit card data on the computer. Saving customer credit card data is a violation of customer privacy and company policy. You suspect the information may be being used for identity theft or credit card fraud. Your company's code of ethics specifies that employees are responsible for reporting violations of the policy to management. Your company's information technology specifies that employees should not share their passwords or login to accounts or equipment used by other employees. If you turn in your coworker, you could also get in trouble since you only gained the information through violating a company policy. If you don't turn in your coworker, the people whose credit card information she saved could be victimized by fraud or theft.
How can you apply an ethical theory to solve the dilemma? What solutions would you do -and why based on ethics?