Computer
Professionals’
Responsibilities
Ethics
🏶 Professional Ethics
⌘ Categories:
• Medical,
• Legal,
• Accounting,
• Computer,
• …and more.
Q: What are the special responsibilities of these professionals?
Ethics
🏶 Computer Ethics
⌘ Special Responsibilities Facing Computer
Professionals and Users
• Maintaining relationships with and
responsibilities toward customers, clients,
coworkers, employees, and employers.
• Making critical decisions that have significant
consequences for many people.
• Determining how to manage, select, or use
computer hardware and software in a
professional setting.
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Ethics
🏶 “Do the Right Thing”
⌘ Behaving Ethically Includes:
• Being honest.
• Keeping promises.
• Doing your job well.
• Not stealing.
Q: What other behaviors are usually considered “doing the right thing?” 4
Ethics
🏶 There is no formula to solve ethical
problems.
🏶 The computer professional must
consider trade-offs.
Ethics
🏶 Some Important Distinctions
⌘ Right, Wrong, and Okay: acts may be
ethically obligatory, ethically prohibited, or
ethically acceptable.
⌘ Negative rights (liberties): the right to act
without coercive interference.
⌘ Positive rights (claim-rights): imposing an
obligation on some people to provide certain
things.
⌘ Causing harm: some acts may cause harm
to others but are not necessarily unethical.
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Ethics
🏶 Some Important Distinctions (cont’d) ⌘ Goals
vs. actions: the actions we take to achieve
our goals should be consistent with our
ethical constraints.
⌘ Personal preference vs. ethics: some issues
we disapprove of because of our dislikes,
rather than on ethical grounds.
⌘ Law vs. ethics: some acts are legal, but
unethical (Are there acts that are ethical but
illegal?)
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Ethical Guidelines for
Computer Professionals
Guidelines and Professional Responsibilities:
🏶 Understand what success means
🏶 Include users (such as medical staff,
technicians, pilots, office workers) in the design
and testing stages to provide safe and useful
systems
🏶 Do a thorough, careful job when planning and
scheduling a project and when writing bids or
contracts
🏶 Design for real users and be inclusive
Ethical Guidelines for Computer
. . . (cont.)
Guidelines and Professional Responsibilities
(cont.):
🏶 Don’t assume existing software is safe or
correct; review and test it
🏶 Be open and honest about capabilities,
safety, and limitations of software
🏶 Require a convincing case for safety
🏶 Pay attention to defaults
🏶 Develop communication skills
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Analyzing Ethical Scenarios
🏶 Brainstorming phase
⌘ List risks, issues, problems, consequences.
⌘ List all the stakeholders.
⌘ List possible actions.
🏶 Analysis phase
⌘ Identify the responsibilities of the decision-maker.
⌘ Identify the rights of stakeholders.
⌘ Consider the impact of the action options on the
stakeholders.
⌘ Find sections in codes of ethics that apply. Categorize each
potential action or response as ethically obligatory, ethically
prohibited, or ethically acceptable.
⌘ Consider the ethical merits of each option and select one. 10
Scenarios
Scenario 1:
🏶 Your company is developing a free e
mail service that will include targeted
advertising based on the content of
the e-mail messages (similar to
Google’s Gmail). You are part of the
team designing the system. What are
your ethical responsibilities?
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Scenarios
Scenario 2:
🏶 You are a relatively junior programmer
working on modules that collect data from
loan application forms and convert them to
formats required by the parts of the program
that evaluate the applications. You find that
some demographic data are missing from
some forms, particularly race and age.
What should your program do? What should
you do?
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Scenarios
Scenario 3:
🏶 Your company has 25 licenses for a
computer program, but you discover
that it has been copied onto 80
computers. What do you do?
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Scenarios
Scenario 4:
🏶 Suppose you are a member of a team
working on a computer-controlled crash
avoidance system for automobiles. You
think the system has a flaw that could
endanger people. The project manager
does not seem concerned and expects to
announce completion of the project soon.
Do you have an ethical obligation to do
something?
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Scenarios
Scenario 5:
🏶 You work for the IRS, the Social
Security Administration, a movie
rental company, or an Internet service
provider. Someone asks you to get a
copy of records about a particular
person. He will pay you $500. What
do you do?
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Scenarios
Scenario 6:
🏶 You have a small consulting business. The
CyberStuff company plans to buy software to run
a new collaborative content-sharing Web site.
CyberStuff wants to hire you to evaluate bids
from vendors. Your spouse works for NetWorkx
and did most of the work in writing the bid that
NetWorkx plans to submit. You read the bid while
your spouse was working on it and you think it is
excellent. Do you tell CyberStuff about your
spouse’s connection with NetWorkx?
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Scenarios
Scenario 7:
🏶 A team of programmers is developing a
communications system for firefighters to
use when fighting a fire. Firefighters will be
able to communicate with each other, with
supervisors near the scene, and with other
emergency personnel. The programmers
will test the system in a field near the
company office. What is the ethical issue? 17
Scenarios
Scenario 8:
🏶 You are the computer system administrator
for a mid-sized company. You can monitor
the company network from home, and you
frequently work from home. Your niece, a
college student, is visiting for a week. She
asks to use your computer to check her e
mail. Sure, you say. You are being a
gracious host. What is the ethical problem? 18
Ethics in Professional
Organizations
Special Ethical Responsibilities of Professionals 🏶
Most people don’t have much knowledge of a
professional field (computer science, medicine) -
thus, problems can surreptitiously have a great
impact
🏶 Huge numbers of people can be affected, including
being victims
🏶 Responsibility to employer as well as to society
🏶 Accuracy about capabilities and reliability 🏶
Proper training of users
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ACM Code of Ethics
Summary of ACM Code of Ethics
1. GENERAL MORAL IMPERATIVES
As an ACM member I will ....
1.1 Contribute to society and human well-being.
1.2 Avoid harm to others.
1.3 Be honest and trustworthy.
1.4 Be fair and take action not to discriminate. 1.5 Honor
property rights including copyrights and patent. 1.6 Give
proper credit for intellectual property. 1.7 Respect the
privacy of others.
1.8 Honor confidentiality.
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Summary of ACM Code of Ethics code
2. MORE SPECIFIC PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES
As an ACM computing professional I will ....
🏶 2.1Strive to achieve the highest quality, effectiveness and dignity in
both the process and products of professional work.
🏶 2.2 Acquire and maintain professional competence.
🏶 2.3 Know and respect existing laws pertaining to professional work. 🏶
2.4 Accept and provide appropriate professional review.
🏶 2.5Give comprehensive and thorough evaluations of computer
systems and their impacts, including analysis of possible risks.
🏶 2.6Honor contracts, agreements, and assigned responsibilities.
🏶 2.7Improve public understanding of computing and its
consequences.
🏶 2.8Access computing and communication resources only when
authorized to do so.
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Summary of ACM Code of Ethics
3. ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP IMPERATIVES
As an ACM member and an organizational leader, I will ....
🏶 3.1Articulate social responsibilities of members of an organizational unit and
encourage full acceptance of those responsibilities.
🏶 3.2Manage personnel and resources to design and build information systems
that enhance the quality of working life.
🏶 3.3Acknowledge and support proper and authorized uses of an organization's
computing and communication resources.
🏶 3.4Ensure that users and those who will be affected by a system have their needs
clearly articulated during the assessment and design of requirements; later the
system must be validated to meet requirements.
🏶 3.5Articulate and support policies that protect the dignity of users and others
affected by a computing system.
🏶 3.6Create opportunities for members of the organization to learn the principles
and limitations of computer systems.
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Summary of ACM Code of Ethics
4. COMPLIANCE WITH THE CODE
As an ACM member I will ....
🏶 4.1 Uphold and promote the principles of
this Code.
🏶 4.2 Treat violations of this code as
inconsistent with membership in the ACM
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