Introduction  (Page 7/8)

Some of these are:

1. Confidentiality: Engineers should normally respect the confidentiality of their employers or clients irrespective of whether or not a formal confidentiality agreement has been signed.

2. Competence: Engineers should not misrepresent their level of competence. They should not knowingly accept work which is outwith their competence.

3. Intellectual property rights: Engineers should be aware of local laws governing the use of intellectual property such as patents, copyright, etc. They should be careful to ensure that the intellectual property of employers and clients is protected.

4. Computer misuse: Software engineers should not use their technical skills to misuse other people’s computers. Computer misuse ranges from relatively trivial (game playing on an employer’s machine, say) to extremely serious (dissemination of viruses).

In this respect, professional societies and institutions have an important role to play. Organisations such as the ACM, the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) and the British Computer Society publish a code of professional conduct or code of ethics. Members of these organisations undertake to follow that code when they sign up for membership. These codes of conduct are generally concerned with fundamental ethical behaviour.

The ACM and the IEEE have cooperated to produce a joint code of ethics and professional practice. The rationale behind this code is summarised in the first two paragraphs of the longer form:

Computers have a central and growing role in commerce, industry, government, medicine, education, entertainment and society at large. Software engineers are those who contribute by direct participation or by teaching, to the analysis, specification, design, development, certification, maintenance and testing of software systems. Because of their roles in developing software systems, software engineers have significant opportunities to do good or cause harm, to enable others to do good or cause harm, or to influence others to do good or cause harm. To ensure, as much as possible, that their efforts will be used for good, software engineers must commit themselves to making software engineering a beneficial and respected profession. In accordance with that commitment, software engineers shall adhere to the following Code of Ethics

and Professional Practice.

The Code contains eight Principles related to the behaviour of and decisions made by professional software engineers, including practitioners, educators, managers, supervisors and policy makers, as well as trainees and students of the profession. The Principles identify the ethically responsible relationships in which individuals, groups, and organizations participate and the primary obligations within these relationships. The Clauses of each Principle are illustrations of some of the obligations included in these relationships. These obligations are founded in the software engineer’s humanity, in special care owed to people affected by the work of software engineers, and the unique elements of the practice of software engineering. The Code prescribes these as obligations of anyone claiming to be or aspiring to be a software engineer.