School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering Assignment 2

ICE1001 Professional Perspectives Ethics

ICE1001
Professional Perspectives
Assignment 2
Ethics
Assessment information
Module credit (total): 20
Assignment weight: 20%
Length (approx.): 800-1000 Words
Deadline: 23:59 15/12/2021

Outline
In your careers, due to the pervasiveness of technology, it is likely that you will encounter scenarios
where your choices and actions will have legal, social and/or ethical consequences. These choices
may also come under the general professional practices of your field or the code of conduct of your
respective professional body.

Tasks
Using one of the scenarios below, or a scenario of your own choosing (after discussion with me), you
must research and discus the ethic, legal, social and professional standpoints on this scenario.

You will need to apply each of the normative schools of ethics to the situation (Consequentialism,
Deontology and Virtuism), presenting what a strict interpretation of that school would decide.

You will also need to research and apply relevant law to the situation to determine the legality of
your chosen scenario.

You should also examine if this proposal would be objectionable to communities at large, by
determining if effects would offend that community’s morals. Similarly, as a technical Professional
you would be expected to live up to (one of) our regulating bodies.

The BCS, IET and IEEE publish their respective Code of Conduct documents which they expect all
their members to adhere to. Does the scenario you are discussing contravene any of the provisions
in this document?

You may then conclude by briefly discussing this scenario with regard to your personal values.

You may either write your essay in a word processor or in LaTeX. Any references to external material
must be properly cited in IEEE style.

We will be covering LaTeX and IEEE referencing in the lectures. But I strongly suggest you still keep a
note of your sources beforehand.

Do not include the list of references in your word count.

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ICE1001 Professional Perspectives Ethics

Scenarios
Scenario 1: Automated Facial Recognition
The potential use of government-run automated facial recognition systems on citizens.

You may consider any specific case of this system being employed or even hypothetical cases.
However, one example can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/automated-facial-
recognition

Scenario 2: COVID-19 Track and Trace Apps

The use of contact tracing apps have become very prevalent over the last few months. As well as the
benefits of using such apps, there is capacity for abuse. For example the original version of the NHS
app that was initially trialled version, centrally collected potentially non-anonymous contact data. It
was also reported that this data was going to be stored and use for epidemiological and other
medical research.

There is also the current fully released version, which although it uses the anonymous locally stored
Google/Apple contact API, can also store information about specific venues visited when using
venue QR codes.

https://www.nhs.uk/apps-library/nhs-covid-19/

Scenario 3: Neuralink
Brain-Computer interface technology with the short-term goal of treating brain diseases. For those
in the field of transhumanism and human enhancement, this is considered to be one of the next
major steps in human evolution.

Elon Musk has state that his long-term goal for Neuralink is to achieve “symbiosis with artificial
intelligence” and avoid the threat that he believes AI poses to human.

Although this technology has many obvious potential medical and therapeutic benefits. There are
many concerns regarding humans becoming increasingly enhanced by technology as it becomes
more widely available.

Self-proposed scenario
You may also propose your own scenario. It must be a scenario that has ethical ambiguity, with
contentiousness or controversial factors. This includes legal and professional integrity concerns.

This scenario must be the result of technology or a technological advancement.

Submission
Your submission must include:

• A single Microsoft Word document or PDF of your essay.

You must submit your work to Blackboard as PDF files. (All major word processors can now export to
PDF, including Office that you are able to download as part of your university Office 365 account.)

Late submissions
Work submitted within one week of the stated deadline will be marked but the mark will be capped
at 40%. A mark of 0% will be awarded for any work submitted 1 week after the deadline.

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Acceptable reasons for submitting work late include:

Serious personal illness with a doctor’s certificate (a self-certified medical note should not be
accepted); the death of a relative or close friend; serious family problems such as divorce, separation
and eviction.

Examples of unacceptable reasons for failing to submit work on time include:

Having exams; having other work to do; not having access to a computer; having computer-related
problems; being on holiday; not being able to find information about a subject.

Extensions
Extensions will only be granted approval of an extension request. Assessors do not need the full
details of any extenuating circumstances. The online service for extension requests can be found in
the request centre:
https://apps.bangor.ac.uk/requests/circumstance/new/?next=extension_requests:self_cert_check

Plagiarism
Plagiarised work will be given a mark of zero. Remember when you submit you agree to the standard
agreement:

“This piece of work is a result of my own work except where it is a group assignment for which
approved collaboration has been granted. Material from the work of others (from a book, a journal
or the Web) used in this assignment has been acknowledged and quotations and paraphrasing
suitably indicated. I appreciate that to imply that such work is mine, could lead to a nil mark, failing
the module or being excluded from the University. I also testify that no substantial part of this work
has been previously submitted for assessment.”

Mark scheme
Percentage Criteria
0-20% The student has submitted an incomplete piece of work that is extremely limited
and does not fulfil the requirements of the assignment. Little effort has been put
into the design and the report is incomplete.
20-40% The work demonstrates a basic understanding of the tasks and the student has
completed most sections to a threshold level with little to no effort made in each.
40-60% The student has created a piece of work of average quality and implemented their
ideas reasonably well and with somewhat thorough thought. Furthermore, the
student has shown solid justification for their ideas showing an acceptable
understanding of the topic.
60-80% The submission is a coherent and well thought out piece of work with an excellent
consideration of the topics discussed.
80%-100% An exceptional piece of work showing a solid understanding of the topic and most of
the aspects it covers. The submission presents a very strong argument. The work
meets an exceptionally high professional standard.

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