1. Chapter 9: Professional Ethics and Responsibilities
CSE/ISE 312
Chapter 9: Professional Ethics and Responsibilities

2. Chapter outline What is professional ethics
Ethical guidelines for computer professionals
Scenarios

3. What is "Professional Ethics"?
Professional ethics includes relationships with and responsibilities toward customers, clients, coworkers, employees, employers, others who use one’s products and services, and others whom they affect
A professional has a responsibility to act ethically
Many professions have a code of ethics that professionals are expected to abide by
Medical doctors, Lawyers and judges, Accountants
Honesty is one of the most fundamental ethical values; however, many ethical problems are more subtle than the choice of being honest or dishonest
There are special aspects to making ethical decisions in a professional context, in situations where
You must make critical decisions
Significant consequences for you and other could result
Recognizing ethical issues, some ethical issues are controversial
2nd: People make decisions based on the information they collect. Lies deliberately sabotage this activity. Treating people as means to ends, not ends in themselves.
- How much risk to privacy, security, safety is acceptable in a system?
- What uses of another company’s IP are acceptable?
- write a database of information obtained from government records, to generate lists of convicted shoplifters or marketing lists of new home buyers, divorced parents with young children.
- Distribute software to convert files from formats with built-in copy protection to formats that can be copied more easily.
- How much money and effort to allocate to training employees to use a new system.

4. Why Professional Ethics?
Because of some special aspects
Professional is an expert in a field that most customers know little about
Customers have little ability to protect themselves, they rely on the knowledge, expertise, and honesty of the professional
This is regardless of whether they are the direct or indirect customers of the product
Products of many professionals (e.g., Highway bridges, investment advice, surgery protocols, computer systems) profoundly affect large number of people
Professionals must maintain up to date skills and knowledge
Most people affected by the devices, systems, and services of professionals do not understand how they work and cannot easily judge their quality and safety. A professional advertises his or her expertise and thus has an obligation to provide it.
A professional has special responsibilities not just to customers, but to those indirectly affected. These responsibilities include thinking about potential risks to privacy and security of data, safety, reliability, and ease of use.
Because of the complexity of computer software, professionals have an ethical responsibility not simply to avoid intentional evil, but to exercise a high degree of care and follow good professional practices to reduce the likelihood of problems. They must maintain an expected level of competence and be up to date on current knowledge, technology, and standards of the profession.

5. Professional Codes of Ethics
These codes provide
a general statement of ethical values in the profession
reminders about specific professional responsibilities
guidance for new/young members of the profession
There are several organizations for the range of professions included in the general term “computer professional.” The main ones are the ACM and the IEEE Computer Society. They developed the Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice (adopted jointly by the ACM and IEEE CS) and the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.
The codes emphasize the basic ethical values of honesty and fairness. They cover many aspects of professional behavior, including the responsibility to respect confidentiality, maintain professional competence, be aware of relevant laws, and honor contracts and agreements. They stress the responsibility to respect and protect privacy, to avoid harm to others, and to respect property rights.

6. Professional Codes of Ethics
Codes of two main computer professional orgs
ACM code of ethics and professional conduct
ACM: Association of Computer Machinery
Software engineering (SE) code of ethics and professional practice
IEEE-CS: Inst. for Electrical & Electronics Engineers, Computer Society
There are several organizations for the range of professions included in the general term “computer professional.” The main ones are the ACM and the IEEE Computer Society. They developed the Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice (adopted jointly by the ACM and IEEE CS) and the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.
The codes emphasize the basic ethical values of honesty and fairness. They cover many aspects of professional behavior, including the responsibility to respect confidentiality, maintain professional competence, be aware of relevant laws, and honor contracts and agreements. They stress the responsibility to respect and protect privacy, to avoid harm to others, and to respect property rights.

7. The SE Code (8 Principles)
Public: shall act consistently with the public interest
Client and employer: act in the best interest
Product: ensure to meet the highest standards possible
Judgment: maintain integrity and independence

8. The SE Code (8 Principles)
Management: ethical in management of software development and maintenance
Profession: advance the integrity and reputation
Colleagues: be fair to and supportive of their colleagues
Self: participate in lifelong learning in their profession
Total: 80 clauses

9. The ACM Code (24 Imperatives)
General moral imperatives: as an ACM member, I will
Contribute to society and human well-being
Avoid harm to others
Be honest and trustworthy
Be fair and take action not to discriminate
Honor property rights including copyrights, patents
Give proper credit for IP (must not take credit for other’s idea or work)
Respect the privacy of others
Honor confidentiality

10. The ACM Code (cont’d) More specific professional responsibilities
Acquire and maintain professional competence,
Know and respect existing laws,
Honor contracts, agreements, and assigned responsibilities, …
Organizational leadership imperatives
Articulate social responsibilities, encourage their full acceptance
Manage to design & build systems that enhance quality of life, …
Compliance with the code
Uphold and promote the principles of this code, …

11. Guidelines, Professional Responsibilities
Understand what success means
Include users (such as medical staff, technicians, pilots, office workers) in the design and testing stages
Do a thorough, careful job when planning and scheduling a project and when writing bids or contracts
Rather than to proceed in the absence of a convincing case for disaster

12. Guidelines, Professional Responsibilities
Design for real users
Don’t assume existing software is safe or correct
Be open and honest about capabilities, safety, and limitations of software
Require a convincing case for safety
Pay attention to defaults
Develop communication skills
Rather than to proceed in the absence of a convincing case for disaster

13. Methodology for Analyzing Scenarios
Brainstorming phase
List all the people and organizations affected (the stakeholders)
List risks, issues, problems, and consequences
List benefits. Identify who gets each benefit
In cases where there is no simple yes or no decision, but rather one has to choose some action, list possible actions

14. Methodology for Analyzing Scenarios
Analysis phase
Identify responsibilities of the decision maker
Identify rights of stakeholders
Consider the impact of the options on the stakeholders (consequences, risks, benefits, harms, costs)
Categorize each potential action as ethically obligatory, prohibited, or acceptable
When there are multiple options, select one, considering the ethical merits of each, courtesy to others, practicality, self-interest, personal preferences, etc.

15. Scenarios At-a-Glance
Protecting personal data
Designing an system with targeted ads
Webcams in school laptops
Publishing security vulnerabilities
Specifications
Schedule pressures: safety-critical, product to market
Software license violation

16. Scenarios At-a-Glance
Going public
Release of personal information
Conflict of interest
Kickbacks and disclosure
A test plan
AI and sentencing criminals
a gracious host

17. Scenario 2
(9.3.3 Designing an system with targeted ads) Your company is developing a free service that will include targeted advertising based on the content of the messages (similar to Google’s Gmail). You are part of the team designing the system. What are your ethical responsibilities?
Protect privacy of
No human will read the s, but what info will be collected? Be stored? Per user? Who clicked what? For how long? How to protect? How is it disclosed?
Inform users of targeted ads (informed consent)
What if users do not read? We need to think of potential risks, consider privacy and protection throughout the design/planning process

18. Scenario 4
(9.3.6 Publishing security vulnerabilities) Three MIT students planned to present a paper at a security conference describing security vulnerabilities in Boston’s transit fare system. At the request of the transit authority, a judge ordered the students to cancel the presentation and not to distribute their research. The students are debating whether they should circulate their paper on the Web. Imagine that you are one of the students.
What are some reasons why you might want to circulate the paper? You might think the judge’s order violates your freedom of speech; posting the paper would be a protest. You might want to circulate the paper for the same reasons you planned to present it at a conference: to make other security experts aware of the problems, perhaps to generate work on a security patch, perhaps to spur the transit authority to fix the problems.
Publishing the vulnerabilities has several risks. The transit system could lose a substantial amount of money if people exploit the information. You and your co-authors could face legal action for violating the order. The university could face negative consequences because the work was part of a school project.

19. Scenario 5
(9.3.6 Specifications) 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?
- Consult the specifications (approved by the client and project mgr) for the program. Doing what the company has agreed to do and had been paid to do.
- If not in spec, talk to your mgr. If he said “default to white for race, banks do not discriminate based on race anyway”, do not accept his decision. You should consult the client or higher level mgr who is responsible for the program design. Document the decision in a new version of the specification
- You may not know all potential use of the program.
The lender and government might want data on race to ensure compliance with nondiscrimination policies and laws.
The program may later be used for patients evaluation to develop new drugs. Missing or wrong data can lead to misleading conclusions. They do their job. You do yours. At least, document in specification

20. Scenario 8
(9.3.9 Going public) 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?
Discuss the concerns with the proj mgr. Internal “whistle-blowing” helps protect the company, as well as the public
If he decides to proceed, u go talk to sb higher up in company
If he is also not willing to investigate, you can go to customers, news media, government agency
o lose job, damaging company reputation, u may be mistaken, may kill a potentially valuable and fixable proj
Talk to other professionals. If convinced of flaw or irresponsible attitude among mgrs, u must go further
o u r participant of the proj, paid by it, may violate a confidentiality agreement
Keep a complete and accurate record of your attempts and responses you got.
E.g., San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit system.
whistle-blower: a person who tells the public or someone in authority about alleged dishonest or illegal activities (misconduct) occurring in a government department, a public or private organization, or a company

21. Scenario 11
( Kickbacks and Disclosure) You are an administrator at a major university. Your department selects a few brands of security software to recommend to students for their desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and other devices. One of the companies whose software you will evaluate takes you out to dinner, gives you free software (in addition to the security software), offers to pay your expenses to attend a professional conference on computer security, and offers to give the university a percentage of the price for every student who buys its security package.
Have the class analyze the scenario using the brainstorming and analysis methodology.
Does your employer have a policy about accepting gifts from vendors?
People want to know when a recommendation represents an honest opinion and when someone is paying for it.
Disclosure is a key point.