SE 101 Software Engineering 1

Module 2

Professional and ethical responsibility

Like other engineers, software engineers must accept that their job involves wider
responsibilities than simply the application of technical skills. Their work is carried out within a
legal and social framework. Software engineering is obviously bounded by local, national and
international laws. Software engineers must behave in an ethical and morally responsible way if
they are to be respected as professionals. It goes without saying that engineers should uphold
normal standards of honesty and integrity. They should not use their skills and abilities to
behave in a dishonest way or in a way that will bring disrepute to the software engineering
profession. However, there are areas where standards of acceptable behaviour are not
bounded by laws but by the more tenuous notion of professional responsibility. Some of these
are:

1. Confidentiality Engineers should normally respect the confidentiality of their

employers or clients irrespective of whether or not a formal confidentiality agreement has been
signed.

2. Competence Engineers should not misrepresent their level of competence. They

should not knowingly accept work which is outwith their competence.

3. Intellectual property rights Engineers should be aware of local laws governing the
use of intellectual property such as patents, copyright, etc. They should be careful to ensure that
the intellectual property of employers and clients is protected.

4. Computer misuse Software engineers should not use their technical skills to misuse
other people’s computers. Computer misuse ranges from relatively trivial (game playing on an
employer’s machine, say) to extremely serious (dissemination of viruses).

In this respect, professional societies and institutions have an important role to play.
Organisations such as the ACM, the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) and
the British Computer Society publish a code of professional conduct or code of ethics. Members
of these organisations undertake to follow that code when they sign up for membership. These
codes of conduct are generally concerned with fundamental ethical behaviour. The ACM and
the IEEE have cooperated to produce a joint code of ethics and professional practice. This code
exists in both a short form, shown in Figure 1.8, and a longer form (Gotterbarn, Miller et al.,
1999) which adds detail and substance to the shorter version. The rationale behind this code is
summarised in the first two paragraphs of the longer form:

Computers have a central and growing role in commerce, industry, government,

medicine, education, entertainment and society at large. Software engineers are those who
contribute by direct participation or by teaching, to the analysis, specification, design,
development, certification, maintenance and testing of software systems. Because of their roles
in developing software systems, software engineers have significant opportunities to do good or
cause harm, to enable others to do good or cause harm, or to influence others to do good or
cause harm. To ensure, as much as possible, that their efforts will be used for good, software
engineers must commit themselves to making software engineering a beneficial and respected
profession. In accordance with that commitment, software engineers shall adhere to the
following Code of Ethics and Professional Practice.

The Code contains eight Principles related to the behaviour of and decisions made by
professional software engineers, including practitioners, educators, managers, supervisors and
policy makers, as well as trainees and students of the profession. The Principles identify the
ethically responsible relationships in which individuals, groups, and organizations participate
and the primary obligations within these relationships. The Clauses of each Principle are
illustrations of some of the obligations included in these relationships. These obligations are
founded in the software engineer’s humanity, in special care owed to people affected by the
work of software engineers, and the unique elements of the practice of software engineering.
The Code prescribes these as obligations of anyone claiming to be or aspiring to be a software
engineer.

In any situation where different people have different views and objectives you are likely
to be faced with ethical dilemmas. For example, if you disagree, in principle, with the policies of
more senior management in the company, how should you react? Clearly, this depends on the
particular individuals and the nature of the disagreement. Is it best to argue a case for your
position from within the organisation or to resign in principle? If you feel that there are problems
with a software project, when do you reveal these to management? If you discuss these while
they are just a suspicion, you may be over-reacting to a situation; if you leave it too late, it may
be impossible to resolve the difficulties. Such ethical dilemmas face all of us in our professional
lives and, fortunately, in most cases they are either relatively minor or can be resolved without
too much difficulty. Where they cannot be resolved, the engineer is faced with, perhaps, another
problem. The principled action may be to resign from their job but this may well affect others
such as their partner or their children. A particularly difficult situation for professional engineers
arises when their employer acts in an unethical way. Say a company is responsible for
developing a safety-critical system and because of time-pressure falsifies the safety validation
records. Is the engineer’s responsibility to maintain confidentiality or to alert the customer or
publicise, in some way, that the delivered system may be unsafe? The problem here is that
there are no absolutes when it comes to safety. Although the system may not have been
validated according to pre-defined criteria, these criteria may be too strict. The system may
actually operate safely throughout its lifetime. It is also the case that, even when properly
validated, the system may fail and cause an accident. Early disclosure of problems may result in
damage to the employer and other employees; failure to disclose problems may result in
damage to others.
 Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice

ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Task Force on Software Engineering Ethics and Professional

Practices

PREAMBLE The short version of the code summarizes aspirations at a high level of the
abstraction; the clauses that are included in the full version give examples and details of how
these aspirations change the way we act as software engineering professionals. Without the
aspirations, the details can become legalistic and tedious; without the details, the aspirations
can become high sounding but empty; together, the aspirations and the details form a cohesive
code. Software engineers shall commit themselves to making the analysis, specification, design,
development, testing and maintenance of software a beneficial and respected profession. In
accordance with their commitment to the health, safety and welfare of the public, software
engineers shall adhere to the following Eight Principles:

1. PUBLIC - Software engineers shall act consistently with the public interest.

2. CLIENT AND EMPLOYER - Software engineers shall act in a manner that is in the
best interests of their client and employer consistent with the public interest.

3. PRODUCT - Software engineers shall ensure that their products and related
modifications meet the highest professional standards possible.

4. JUDGMENT - Software engineers shall maintain integrity and independence in their

professional judgment.

5. MANAGEMENT - Software engineering managers and leaders shall subscribe to and

promote an ethical approach to the management of software development and maintenance.

6. PROFESSION - Software engineers shall advance the integrity and reputation of the
profession consistent with the public interest.

7. COLLEAGUES - Software engineers shall be fair to and supportive of their

colleagues.

8. SELF - Software engineers shall participate in lifelong learning regarding the practice
of their profession and shall promote an ethical approach to the practice of the profession.