ETHICS in software development

Jane Prusakova

@jprusakova

Professional Code of Conduct

• What is right and proper?

• Questions of morality

• What should never be done?

Moral questions are hard

• IT is truly global

• Effects and results of a technology can occur far away and a long time after its development

• Unintentional consequences can be significant

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

• Contribute to society and human well-being.

• Avoid harm to others.

• Be honest and trustworthy.

• Give proper credit for intellectual property.

• Respect the privacy of others. Honor confidentiality.

Technology and its consequences

• Dispensing drugs

• Testing automobiles • Emissions

• Working brakes

• Transforming users and their data into product

Technology and its consequences

Ethical concerns

• Evil software• software that is likely to do harm

• Data• what to keep, what to publish, how to use

• Bugs• is it OK to not fix a bug or vulnerability

• Quality• is it acceptable to deliver poor or untested product

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

• Contribute to society and human well-being.

• Avoid harm to others.

• Be honest and trustworthy.

• Give proper credit for intellectual property.

• Respect the privacy of others. Honor confidentiality.

Software and hardware bugs

• What is the harm?

• Who was harmed,

if anyone?

• What is the ethical

course of actions?

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

• Contribute to society and human well-being.

• Avoid harm to others.

• Be honest and trustworthy.

• Give proper credit for intellectual property.

• Respect the privacy of others. Honor confidentiality.

Smart Listening devices

- Devices should “wake up” on specific word.- Record audio and send out.

• Should this technology be trusted?

• What is the harm, if any?

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

• Contribute to society and human well-being.

• Avoid harm to others.

• Be honest and trustworthy.

• Give proper credit for intellectual property.

• Respect the privacy of others. Honor confidentiality.

Quiz: Cost of software piracy

$0

Millions of dollars

Poor developers’ livelihood

What is ethical?

•Pay attention to and give credit publicly to authors

• Learn and abide by licensing terms• Challenge licensing terms through contract negotiations or in court

•Contribute to the community• through open source,

• free closed source or

• proprietary software for purchase

Ethics of software products

• Does all software add to the good of the people?• Is there “evil” software?

• Should we be concerned about software misuse leading to harm?• Are we, developers, responsible for improper use?

• Is it OK for software to extend privileges to some people over others?• Programmers have the power to decide who is “worthy”

Video jail visitation

- Leads to bans on in-person visits

- Limits accessibility of visitation

Encrypted communication makesIt harder for authorities to detect Illegal and terrorist activities

Alt-right uses social networking sitesto spread their message.

Ethics of software development practice

• Is it OK to fail and learn from mistakes?

• Is it ethical to require a “death march” from the team?

• Is it acceptable to keep a high-performing person who is otherwise hurting the team?

What ethical dilemmas are you facing?

ETHICS in software development

Jane Prusakova

@jprusakova