Computing professionals are called to act in strict accordance with high ethical standards. Three predominant sources of ethical standards exist for computing professionals. The IEEE, ACM, and Software Engineering Code of Ethics each provide standards for ethical behavior to guide computing professionals both inside and outside of the workplace. These collections of moral imperatives will be used to ethically assess the following scenario.
Diane Jones is a computing professional who owns and operates a consulting business. Diane is designing a database management system for a client. Throughout the design process Diane has involved the CEO, director of computing, and the director of personnel from the client firm. Diane presented the client with several options regarding the level of security to be implemented into the database management system. Due to cost constraints, the client has elected to proceed with the least secure option. Diane feels strongly that this leaves the system vulnerable to attacks by either enterprising employees or Internet based hackers.
The stakeholders in this situation are the client’s CEO, the client’s director of computing, the client’s director of personnel, the client’s employees, Diane, and the employees of Diane’s company. An ethical dilemma places the client’s immediate desires in conflict with Diane’s ethical obligations to the client, the client’s employees, and herself. As a computing professional Diane has a responsibility to her client to produce a high-quality product that will protect their property and reputation. Diane has a responsibility to the client’s employees to build a system with adequate safeguards to protect their personal information stored within the database management sys...
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...afford payment for sufficient security, then Diane must make a difficult decision. If Diane is unwilling to accept full responsibility for insufficient security in the database management system, then she must not proceed with the project. Failure to implement sufficient security could potentially harm all of the stakeholders. Diane’s refusal to build such a system would ultimately protect the interests of each stakeholder.
Works Cited
"Code of Ethics, IEEE." IEEE. IEEE. Web. 9 Nov 2013.
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"Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice." ACM.
Association for Computing Machinery. Web. 9 Nov 2013.
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"Code of Ethics, ACM." ACM. Association for Computing Machinery, 17 Oct 1992.
Web. 10 Nov 2013 .
The first case that I have chosen to analyze is case #3. The standards from the Code of Ethics that comes into play regarding this particular case would be the first and most valuable one will be commitment to client. With this code the social worker primary responsibility is to promote any type of well-being to the clients. The social worker has to remain loyal to their clients. Another standard from the Code of Ethics would be the privacy and confidentiality with this code only as a social worker you are only allow to discuss with persons who are legally incapable of giving informed consent and also their legal representative. Social workers can not disclose confidential information that could lead to identification of a client/ patient with
When a student shows signs of suicidal ideation or thoughts of harming others, the ASCA Ethical Standard provides guidance for Professional School Counselors concerning the mitigation of this situation. The ASCA Ethical Standards state that when students express harm to self or others, parents or legal guardians, and/or authorities must be notified (ASCA, 2016). In addition, the ASCA states school counselor must cautiously use risk assessment so intervention can be created. School Counselors must ensure when they are speaking with parents that they do not negate the risk of harm (ASCA, 2016). Counselors are not permitted to release a student who is considered at risk until support personal is present (ASCA, 2016). All federal, state,
Glaser , C. L. (1997). The Security Dilemma Revisited. Cambridge University press, 50(1), 171-201. Retrieved from http://www.gwu.edu/~iscs/assets/docs/cg-docs/SecurityDilemma-WP-1997.pdf
Security helps the organization meet its business objectives or mission by protecting its physical and financial resources, reputation, legal position, employees, and other tangible and intangible assets through the selection and application of appropriate safeguards. Businesses should establish roles and responsibilities of all personnel and staff members. However, a Chief Information Officer should be appointed to direct an organization’s day to day management of information assets. Supporting roles are performed by the service providers and include systems operations, whose personnel design and operate the computer systems. Each team member must be held accountable in ensuring all of the rules and policies are being followed, as well as, understanding their roles, responsibilities and functions. Organizations information processing systems are vulnerable to many threats that can inflict various types of damage that can result in significant losses (Harris, 2014). Losses can come from actions from trusted employees that defraud the system, outside hackers, or from careless data entry. The major threat to information protection is error and omissions that data entry personnel, users, system operators and programmers make. To better protect business information resources, organizations should conduct a risk analysis to see what
While our organization prides itself in a well-defined and thorough code of ethics, there are occasions where situations arise, but the solution is not clearly defined within our code. In such a case, it is critical to develop a decision making framework that allows our employees to make a decision while operating within the moral guidelines of our corporation. In the hope that we can eliminate discrepancies, Royal Dutch Shell has created an ethical decision strategy that will make clear the ethical standings of our corporation and ensure a consistent decision making process. Our decision making process is focused on our stakeholders, and how we can maximize their benefit.
Whitman, M., & Mattord, H. (2010). Management of information security. (3rd ed., p. 6). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Ethics in business is a highly important concept, as it can affect a company’s profits, salaries paid to employees and CEOs, and public opinion, among many other aspects of a business. Ethics can be enforced by company policies and guidelines, set a precedent when a company is faced with an important decision, and are also evolving thanks to new technology and situations that arise due to technology usage. Businesses have a duty to maintain their ethical responsibilities and also to help their employees enforce these responsibilities in and out of the workplace. However, ethics and the foundation for them are not always black and white. There are many different ethical theories, however Utilitarianism, Kant’s Deontological ethics, and Virtue ethics are three of the most well known theories in existence. Each theory is distinct in that it has a different quality used to determine ethicality and allows for a person to choose which system of ethics works best with both the situation and his or her personal ethical preferences.
Principle of Security Management by Brian R. Johnson, Published by Prentice-Hall copyright 2005 by Pearson Education, Inc.
This essay will discuss some of the Social, Ethical and Legal issues that an IT (Information Technology) Professional will likely face during their career in the Information Technology Sector. Furthermore, I will talk about how these issues affect professionals and how they could approach these challenges to try finding feasible solutions for them.
In the paragraphs that follow you will be introduced to the Code of Ethics as outlined by IEEE, and what it means to its members. A comprehensive summarization will be provided for each guideline along with examples of how this code has been recently violated. The vast world of technology, as ever-changing as it is, can affect almost everyone in any aspect of life. This being the case it is important that we as students and engineers adhere to the guidelines set forth by the IEEE, and commit to conduct ourselves to act in a professional and ethical manner. While this is the conduct expected to be exemplified by the members of IEEE, many organizations and firms have similar codes to which they too expect their members to follow.
In my opinion, ethics give people free will to make right choices. People have free will to make choices that are governed with responsibility, accountability, and liability. We have a responsibility to perform in an ethical manner and be accountable for our choices or actions. Regardless of the circumstances and choices we make, there are consequences if we make the wrong choice. The question of whether an action or choice is ethical or not is fundamentally based on whether something is right or wrong. From an ethical standpoint, unethical choices and risky behavior can lead to increased liabilities. The liabilities result in the loss or damage sustained by a company or other party as result of an unethical and sometimes illegal decision. Although we exercise free will on a continuous basis, we are governed by the decisions we make and my belief is that the decisions we make daily do not just affect us. These decisions affect other people, such as family, friends, coworkers, instructors, neighbors, etc. The most prominent example of ethics can be recognized in the field of technology based on the growing amount of rapidly changing legislation and acts that under consideration in order to protect people from unethical practices.
When the internet was considered a global information system in 1995 millions of Americans participated in virtual communication. People began to communicate with each other and personal information began to be placed online by the stroke of the fingertips to their own computer. So the question is the privacy of individuals trusted online? Can people snoop around and see personal information? Of course people can if guidelines are not set in place to protect them. Public and private information can be complex when some individual(s) do not expect their communication to be read outside of their online community. What will be discussed are some ethical responsibilities that need to take place in the United States. Respecting the individual privacy and honor confidentiality is a must in this country.
In the twenty first century, ‘Professionalism and Ethics’ has raised the standards of Information Technology and Engineering. William Wisely states that, “The engineer shall apply his specialized knowledge and skill at all times in the public interest, with honesty, integrity and honor.” While emphasizing the importance of ethics in the field of Information Technology and Engineering, Deborah G. Johnson affirms as follows:
The agreement between the company and I was to advice the company management toward adopting the best network management plan and security plan. Through the study, I carried out in the firm I was required to evaluate the firm requirement in term of network planning and making sure that the firm has proper mechanism to secure its systems against malicious damage. Considering that, the management personnel have background in IT therefore; they required me to give an expert opinion on the best ways in which they can adopt the network management and the security plan. They required me to evaluate firm needs and what the IT world would offer the firm to enable them to lay down plans for the network and security in the firm.
When I think of ethics, I think of the angel on my left shoulder telling me to do the “right” thing, and the devil on my right, tempting me to join the dark side. This scenario deals with what is “right” or what is “wrong” and where my morals will lie in the end. But who is to say what is right and wrong? Ethics is such a trivial word because every person, company, and culture has a different idea of what is considered ethical or what is considered unethical. Throughout this paper, I will address my personal view on ethics, and how I believe it effects the workplace and today’s society.