The ethics of software engineering
- 1. The Ethics of Software Engineering
- 2. Background After the Enron and WorldCom debacle, the Sarbanes- Oxley Act (SOX) was passed in the United States to improve corporate governance and ethical practices in business. Like lawyers, accountants and bankers, IT professionals are professionals in business. Many of the provisions of SOX have a direct impact on IT professionals as the act addresses issues common to all professionals in business. However unlike other professionals who have to refer to a single code of ethics, IT professionals have a multitude of codes that they must refer to. The need to develop a single code of ethics for IT professional is therefore important. Which leads to the question: What is ethics?
- 3. Ethics theories Ethics is defined as the philosophical study of morality. Some major ethical theories include: • Consequentialism: is the ethical theory that deems correct actions that maximize the overall good or minimize the overall harm. • Deontology which deems actions to be morally right or wrong regardless of their consequences. • Virtue ethics: concentrates on the individual character. Honesty, courage, patience are some of the qualities deemed ethical.
- 4. IT Professionals IT Professionals include the following: • Programmers • Database Administrators • Telecommunication experts • Information systems executives • Software engineers While the focus of this presentation is on software engineers, the findings apply to all IT professionals
- 5. Software Engineering Software engineering is the driving force behind the IT revolution. Software developers create solutions for our lives on and off line. From highly sophisticated medical devices that rely on software to operate to web applications such as Facebook, software developers have increasing powers and a lapse in judgement can result in harm to society.
- 6. Software Engineering Software has become so important that it is now shaping our societal values. As a result software developers have gained tremendous power. In the last 15 years, the environment and practice of software engineering have changed. Commercial applications are mostly web based and are more and more being released to a global audience.
- 7. Software Engineering Nowadays ethics has made its way in companies under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) through which many companies have acknowledge globalization and its impact on society as a whole. The environment is a good example of what used to be considered local but now has become a global phenomenon. Decisions being made in our part of the world have an impact in other parts and vice-versa.
- 8. Software Engineering Issues of privacy and security have also demonstrated that though many end users usually agree to quasi-legal software licensing agreements; informed consent does not constitute educated consent. The desire to succeed with all the social perks associated with it may lead software engineers to rely on their personal ethics which may not be enough to protect society.
- 9. Challenges Software engineers face a series of challenges, the following are the most common: • Shorter life cycle • Global audience • Cultural difference • Inexistence of a single code of conduct • Social impact • Big data • Risk associated with future discoveries
- 10. Common Ethical Issues • Privacy • Cybercrime • Fraud • Intellectual Property • Social exclusion • Security • Digital divide
- 11. Conclusion A framework and an infrastructure that promote ethical reflexivity are necessary to allow emerging ICTs to develop in a social and ethically responsible manner. An unethical software developer is a great liability both to his employer and society. Policy makers, educators and employers play a big role in ensuring that software engineers and other IT professionals develop ethical behaviour as a safeguard for society
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