Why is good judgment required to use the Software Engineering Code of Ethics

effectively?

At present time, society is very dependent on applications and software to carry out

different day-to-day tasks. The information technology culture has made it difficult for

society to function without it. This makes software engineers an important role in

society. Their work carries great value in society in this information age and it can affect

the considerate number of users depending on their decisions. Therefore, the software

engineering code of ethics is developed as a standard or principle for teaching and

practicing software engineering within ethical and professional responsibilities and

obligations (Gotterbarn, D. et. al, 2001, para. 1). While there are different views on what

is ethical and what is unethical depending on different individuals, this principle will

allow software engineers to know what the ethical expectation of society is when they

provide support or create an application. However, the principle by themselves may be

in tension with each other or the standards from other sources and such a situation

requires proper judgment to act in the way that is most considerate under the code of

ethics of the given situation.

Software Engineers should be aware of how their decisions affect the users, other

employees, and the board of directors within the organization they are tied with. The

developed product should be safe to use and maintains the integrity and privacy of the

users. A utilitarian believes that a decision of a software engineer should not cause any

bad impacts on its users, and the decision made will have more overall happiness and

prove to be positive in long run. Sometimes there are situations that cause difficulties to

choose a course of action by not knowing what the right thing to do is. This requires
good judgment and decision-making skills so that the step taken is ethical and does not

bring a negative impact on anyone. Here, a utilitarian would choose the course of action

that will cause the least negative impact and brings more happiness to society. For

example, while deciding whether to release software with small bugs or not, the

utilitarian software engineer would evaluate if the number of clients is greater than the

investor who wants the software to be released. This will lead to two courses of action

when the number of clients is greater, the utilitarian would consider the future impact of

the bugs and then choose not to release the software without fixing them whereas if the

investor and stakeholder number is greater than the clients, he would rather release it

now as the bugs are not that critical and fix it with future updates.

Therefore, good judgment is required to use the Software Engineer Code of Ethics. As it

is required to identify ethical issues, and consequences of the decisions made and

balance the ethical principle. However, good judgment itself is again dependent on the

ethics the Software Engineer follows.

Reference:

Gotterbarn, D., et.al. (2001). Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional

Practice. Experts Arizona. https://experts.arizona.edu/en/publications/software-

engineering-code-of-ethics-and-professional-practice#:~:text=The%20Software

%20Engineering%20Code%20of%20Ethics%20and%20Professional,the%20ethical

%20and%20professional%20obligations%20of%20software%20engineers.

Quinn, J.M. (2019). Ethics for the Information Age (8th ed.). Pearson.
Describe three modern information technology devices and how they may be used to

decrease privacy.

Information Technology has developed so vastly that it can be used for anything. There

are data lying around everywhere and these data when compiled together give

information that can hamper people’s privacy. These data are being collected by

different devices, as the rise of IoT, every smart appliances or devices have some kind

of sensor that receives and stores data to make users’ life easier by predicting and

providing services based on those data. While there is a different technology to

preserve the privacy of a human, there are other technology or devices we choose to

use that decrease our privacy like the use of social media and map services. There are

also other devices such as cameras used for surveillance, traffic speed, or some private

cameras of building facing gates that also capture the pedestrian walking by. These are

devices we did not choose to use; however, it is there collecting our images or videos

as data.

Firstly, the most common one in the present age with the internet, there is mobile

applications such as social media where we post statuses, pictures, videos, and our

interests. The user’s friends and family can know what is going on with them via the

content of social media. Moreover, when we post pictures and videos it also provides

the devices it uploaded from or the location from which they were uploaded. These apps

also feed the user with targeted advertisements by tracking their searches and interest

according to their interaction within the application. Another application is the navigation

apps we use in daily life to get to places. These apps have users’ data and if allowed

always track the device location giving away the information about the user to the
navigation app organization. Like social media apps, these apps can be used for

microtargeting users with advertisements depending on their locations.

Secondly, there are public cameras that are used to surveil civilians or traffic. These

cameras might be facing toward someone’s house which as result can be compromising

someone’s privacy. This will give away someone’s address, image, or video without

their consent. There is ethical use of public cameras as they are installed to monitor the

area and reduce crime or road altercations however, people have a different opinion on

ethics and someone else might debate that its unethical to install public cameras as it is

hampering someone’s privacy without their consent or even without their knowledge.

Finally, there are smart devices that are on the rise, they collect lots of data which can

be used by big organizations to manage their users by feeding them targeted

advertisements. These, voice-activated smart devices like speakers and smart home

appliances can monitor the audio and store those data. Therefore, it is important to

know the privacy terms and conditions for use of such devices.

Since the use of such devices is unavoidable, there should be an ethical agreement

between the users and service provider about the use of collected data, how to store

them, and for what duration as this is important information for both sides, for users, it is

about their privacy while the organization providing the service can use these to

improve their service for the users and as well as grow their organization.