CSI2911 / SEG2911 / ELG2911 Professional Practice Pratique professionnelle

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CSI2911 / SEG2911 / ELG2911Professional Practice
Pratique professionnelle

• TOPIC 2
• Ethical Decision Making
• Some of the material in these slides is derived
  from slides produced by Sara Basse, the Author of
  the Gift of Fire textbook , and also other
  professors who have taught this course including
  Stan Matwin and Liam Peyton

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Ethics / Éthique

• What is Ethics / Qu'est-ce que l'éthique
• Study of what it means to do the right thing,
  faire la bonne chose,
• Assumes people are rational and make free choices
• Rules to follow in our interactions and our
  actions that affect others

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Ethics (cont.)

• Ethical Views
• Deontological / déontologique
• Judging right or wrong based on whether one
  adheres to the rules
• Utilitarianism, consequentialism / L'utilitarisme
  , conséquentialisme
• The greatest good for the greatest number of
  people
• Natural rights / droits naturels
• Some things are right regardless of what rules
  and laws are written down
• No simple answers to many ethical questions
• Do organizations (businesses) have ethics?

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Ethics (cont.)

• Important Distinctions
• Right, wrong and okay
• Negative rights (liberties)
• The right to act without interference
• The right some people assert to do what you want
  with your property
• Freedom of expression
• Positive rights (claim-rights)
• An obligation of some people to provide certain
  things for others
• A doctor has an obligation to care for a sick
  patient
• A computer scientist or engineer must take action
  if they know something is unsafe, will impact the
  environment, etc.

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Ethics (cont.)

• Important Distinctions (cont.)
• Difference between wrong and harm
• Wrong May cause harm, but may not
• Harm Bad consequence actually occurs
• Personal preference and ethics
• Collective rights vs. individual rights
• Law and Ethics

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Discussion Question

• Can you think of examples of
• liberties (negative rights)
• and claim-rights (positive rights)
• that are at opposition to each other?

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What should guide ethical decision making?

• Seven levels
• Constitutions and International treaties
• Laws (statutes)
• Regulations
• Standards of good practice
• Professional codes of ethics
• Corporate policies
• Community and personal values

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Guidance for ethical decision making in the area
of privacy

• Fair Information Practice Principles
• Personal Information Protection and Electronic
  Documents Act PIPEDA
• Ontario Freedom of Information and Protection of
  Privacy Act
• Ontario Personal Health Information Protection
  Act
• CIPS Guidelines
• CIPS Code of Ethics
• University of Ottawa Policies
• Common sense

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Ethical Judgment

• Is a kind of pattern recognition
• It gets better with experience

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Method for Ethical Analysis

• Take a set of ethical points of view
• Equality, justice, respect, self-respect
  (integrity)
• Gather all ethically relevant facts regarding the
  situation and people involved
• Actions, roles, relationships (e.g. conflicts of
  interest)
• Identify key issues
• Look for an existing policy or law that matches
• Pay attention to precedents and people who might
  be sensitive to any given solution
• If a solution found, apply it
• But watch out for conflicting policies, laws,
  principles and points of view
• Otherwise apply higher-level general principles
  and consult with others

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Example ethical situation 1

• You are developing software for the government
  that determines whether someone is eligible for a
  drivers license
• You think there is a problem in the law that will
  deny certain people licenses that is unfair in
  your opinion
• E.g. old people when somebody has complained
  about their driving
• You consider adjusting the software so that the
  public complaints are ignored by the software
• What are the ethical implications?

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Example ethical situation 2

• You discover that an instrument your company
  installed is consistently under-reporting the
  amount of electricity being billed to a customer.
• You know that your best friend, who designed the
  instrument might lose his job if you report the
  situation.
• What do you do?
• Vous découvrez qu'un instrument installé par
  votre société constamment sous-indique la
  quantité d'électricité facturée à un client.
• Vous savez que votre meilleur ami, qui a conçu
  l'instrument pourrait perdre son emploi si vous
  signaler la situation.
• Que faites-vous?
• Top Hat Monocle Question

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Example ethical situation 3

• You discover a vulnerability in your companys
  software that could lead hackers to break in and
  obtain or alter critical information causing
  great harm
• You could just work with the company to fix it
  quietly and say nothing to others
• But perhaps you should notify the users and
  customers so they can take steps to protect
  themselves in case hackers break in before the
  fix is made
• But this might cause great harm to the companys
  reputation

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Example ethical situation 4

• Your company wins a contract to develop a secret
  military technology that could have tremendous
  destructive capability
• You personally believe that it would be better
  for the world if this technology did not exist
• What do you do?

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Example ethical situation 5

• You are tasked with developing a wind farm near a
  city suburb.
• There is a lot of opposition due to potential
  noise, and you are supposed to try to convince
  the citizens that they will come to no harm.
• Yet you know that you would not want to live near
  one of the wind turbines yourself.
• What do you do?

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Example ethical situation 6

• You discover a back door that allows you
  unlimited access to all the private information
  in your company
• You have suspicions that the CEO is embezzling
  funds
• Do you use the back-door to investigate?
• What other alternative courses of action could
  you consider?
• What if instead, you suspect that a fired
  employee was fired unjustly, and you could use
  the back-door to find exonerating evidence?

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Example ethical situation 7

• You know your brother regularly makes videos of
  movies in the cinema and shares them using bit
  torrent software
• As a computer professional what should you do?
• Would it make any difference if your brother was
  selling the videos?

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Example ethical situation 8

• You are aware that if your company started
  sourcing certain electronic devices from China
  instead of the local factory where you live, it
  would save considerable money. However that would
  put a lot of local people out of work, and might
  result in boycotts of your own companies
  products.
• What do you do?

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Example ethical situation 9

• Your company has developed safety critical
  software that you believe may not have been
  adequately tested
• You mention this to your manager, and he tells
  you you are too inexperienced to make that
  judgment, the expert testers are confident the
  software is OK
• What do you do?

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Example ethical situation 10

• You are developing slot machine software for
  casinos
• A psychologist has determined how to improve
  the user interface to encourage people to spend
  more money (i.e. to gamble more)
• You believe this will increase the occurrence of
  gambling addiction
• What could you consider doing?
• Would there be any difference if the same
  technique was to be used to encourage people to
  spend more money on an e-commerce site selling
  consumer products?

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Example ethical situation 11

• You are working on a project that is over budget
  and behind schedule
• You feel fairly certain that the system will
  never work as expected due to poor design and
  that it would be better to start again
• You feel fairly certain it would harm your career
  in the company if you made a big deal about
  your opinions?
• What are the ethical issues?

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Example ethical situation 12

• You know how to crack the encryption on cell
  phone calls and have the hardware and software
  available to do this.
• Is there any ethical situation when you might
  consider it right to use this knowledge
• If you were asked by the police? A judge? A CSIS
  agent? James Bond?
• If you knew it would save someones life? If you
  thought it would prevent some other crime?