Vinicius Malaman Soares

Cpre394-Ethics Essay

The IEEE code of ethics is an important document with 10 codes, the code guides electric
and electronic engineers in the united states, it serves as a guideline on what ethical values
engineers should hold on to. The code of ethics can be first traced back to 1906, when the
president of the AIEE of the time, gave an address on Engineering Honor, that inspired the
committee of the AIEE to write the code, that was done by 1907, but then it lay dormant until
1911 when another committee was appointed to review the code, in the following year the final
code was finished. The code guided AIEE engineers until 1963, when AIEE and IRE merged
into IEEE. The new code of ethics was then issued by the IEEE in 1975, and later it was
simplified in 1990 to the one we know today.
As mentioned before, the idea for the code of ethics came from the address given by the
AIEE’s president in 1906, and the subject of the address was “Engineering Honor,” so that’s the
purpose of the code of ethics, to guide engineers, to ensure engineers are practicing engineering
with honor. One of the major ethical obligations is the obligation with the safety, electrical and
electronic engineers design a range of products, from military equipment to house-hold
appliances. It is the engineers obligation to make sure these products are safe to be used by the
public. This ethical obligation not only covers physical products, but also virtual ones, as it is the
engineers responsibility to protect people’s data and make sure it is safe.
In one of the assignments we discussed about ethical issues, I wrote about the big data
issue. In this scenario a software engineer,Marcus, was faced with a ethical decision, one of the
bosses for his new project had sent him a email with data that Marcus’ boss wants him to add to
the database, but Marcus realized that the email contained a lot of personal information that
qualifies as personally identifiable information (PII). The U.S. Privacy Act defines PII as
“information which can be used to distinguish or trace an individual's identity, such as their
name, social security number, biometric records, etc. alone, or when combined with other
personal or identifying information which is linked or linkable to a specific individual.” This
information is protected under U.S. law.
By having all the private information in plain text, without hashing it or hiding it in any
way, Marcus believes that his boss is not meeting the requirements by law and Marcus doesn’t
know what to do since it is his boss the one who sent him the email with the sensible data, and
his boss insisted that this data is included in the database. How I would go about solving this
matter would be first to contact the boss, and explain to him why this data can’t be used and it
does not follow the U.S. privacy act. It is good to always assume ignorance first, rather than a
bad intention, maybe his boss didn’t know about the law. And if his boss refuses to listen to him,
I believe Marcus should drop the project and contact the authorities, this kind of behavior can’t
be taken lightly, peoples data is private information and it should stay confidential.

It is understandable that Marcus was hesitant to do something about this, since he doesn’t
want to lose his job, but at the same time, according to the code of ethics we as engineers have to
“ to hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public, to strive to comply with ethical
design and sustainable development practices, to protect the privacy of others, and to disclose
promptly factors that might endanger the public or the environment.” As an engineer, Marcus
should follow the code of ethics, and not take part in this project.
To finish it off I would like to talk about the virtues of ethics, more specifically the
virtues of Integrity, Honesty and Responsibility . To have integrity is to hold strong morals and
to have a strong sense of ethical judgement.Honesty, someone that is honest is someone that is
fair, just and truthful, someone that holds the truth to a high regard. Responsibility is probably
the most important out of the three, since someone with a sense of responsibility is someone who
will face the consequences of their acts and will be truthful, responsibility in some way
encapsulates the other two. I chose these three virtues because in my opinion it is something that
relates a lot with the scenario discussed earlier. Marcus needs the integrity to say no to using that
data, he needs to be honest with himself and realize that using that data is wrong and he will need
to be responsible and face the consequences in case he decides to continue moving forward.
While I chose to talk about only three of the virtues, all six of them are important, not
only for a good engineering practice, but also to be a good person. Those are good values to
follow in all aspects of life. So while the code of ethics might’ve been invented to serve as a
guideline for engineering practices, the meaning behind the code are good guidelines for life.

Creating the IEEE Code of Ethics. (2009, August 1). IEEE Conference Publication |

IEEE Xplore. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5337855