Introduction to

Programming
PROGRAMMING ETHICS
 Ethics refers to well-founded
standards of right and wrong that
prescribe what humans ought to do,
usually in terms of rights,
obligations, benefits to society,
fairness, or specific virtues.

Article: What is Ethics

Authors: Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer
link: https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/what-is-ethics/
Grade 8
General Ethical
Principles
 1

Computing practitioners should:

 use their skills for the benefit of society.
 consider if their efforts will result in socially responsible uses and can be broadly accessible
Here, harm means negative consequences
which include:
 Unjustified physical or mental injury
 Unjustified destruction or disclosure of
information
 Unjustified damage to property, reputation
and the environment
2
Computing practitioners should disclose and
discuss all important system capabilities,
limitations and potential problems to the clients
or users. If you as a programmer are aware that
your program might have some flaws or
potential errors, then you must be responsible
enough to notify the parties involved.
 Technology should be inclusive and
3 accessible.
Professionals should avoid creating
technologies that may constitute unfair
discrimination, exclusion or harassment.
Be Fair and Nowadays, many applications have
take action not interfaces that require direct user
to discriminate interaction.
Computing professionals should take care
to consider the needs and sensitivities of a
large and diverse group of potential users
 4
Computing professionals should credit the creators of
Respect the ideas and other work and respect copyrights and other
work required intellectual property.
to produce new They should not claim ownership of work that is not
their own.
ideas,
Open-source software is source code wherein the
inventions, creator grants other users the rights to use, study,
creative works, change and distribute the software to anyone.
and computing If this is the case, then computing professionals should
artifacts not claim private ownership of work that they have
shared as public resources.
 5 A lot of technology collects, monitors and exchanges
personal information without the user knowing.
Computing professionals should make themselves
knowledgeable about the different forms of privacy and
understand the rights and responsibilities associated with
the collection of personal data and information.
Respect They must take precaution to prevent unauthorized
Privacy data collection and protect it from being accessed by
outside parties or being accidentally disclosed.
They must establish clear policies so the users will
understand what is being collected and what it will be
used for.
They must show transparency and ask for informed
consent from their users.
6

Honor Confidentiality
Computing professionals often deal with
confidential information, especially that of
their clients.
They must protect confidentiality except
when the information is evidence of
violation of law or of the Code.
Professional
Responsibilities
7

Maintain high standards of competence and

conduct, and respect rules related to
professional work.

Computing professionals should accept and

provide professional review as well as give
comprehensive evaluations of systems and
their impact.
7

Computing professionals should increase

awareness about computing and encourage
the public to understand it better by sharing
their technical knowledge.

If they see inaccurate or misleading

information related to computing, then they
should also address it
Professional
LEADERSHIP
PRINCIPLES
7

The third part of the Code is for anybody

who has influence over others, educational
responsibilities or managerial
responsibilities.
Leaders have a stronger responsibility to
uphold the principles and ensure that their
members are also practicing them.
This part contains principles about
managing the people on their team and how
to ensure that the Code of Ethics is being
followed throughout the organization.
Let’s Discuss…
Should a company data mine?
Inga sells hardware and software to over 100 000 customers per year.
She has 10 years’ experience. As part of the billing process, she keeps
information on customers. She buys and uses a data mining tool to
derive useful information about her client’s information such as zip
codes, credit card numbers, ID numbers etc. Most of this information
identifies groups and not individuals. She can then use the
information to market her wares more efficiently.
Is this ethical since customers did not give her the information for
this purpose?
 Note: What is data mining?
Data mining is a process of exploration and analysis of large quantities of data, by
automatic or semiautomatic means.
This is done in order to discover meaningful patterns and rules. In many cases, the data
was not collected primarily for the purpose of Data Mining.
Something to consider:
• Should customer be notified?
• Is there a need for establishment of a policy? What should this policy look like.
• Professional responsibility (professional Ethics): Do professionals have a responsibility
to ensurecomputing serves humanity well?
Assignment
DUE: NEXT WEEK (TO BE UPLOADED IN OUR KHUB)
Choose one of the following current trends or issues. Write a short essay with your
reactions and reflections on the ethical implications behind the issue.
Do you think that there is an ethical issue behind it and explain why or why not? The
essay should not be less than 10 sentences and not exceed 20 sentences.

1. Facial Recognition software being used by law enforcement

2. Data management and Marketing (when companies use data they collect from
you to feed you targeted advertisements)
3. TikTok and Data Privacy
4. Phishing (when someone pretends to be a legitimate institution to trick individuals
into divulging personal information particularly banking and credit card details)
5. Catfishing (when someone creates a fake persona online to lure someone into a
relationship)