Barkha Mathur

CPR E 394

Ethics essay

 

                                                The Ethical Way of Engineering

 

Computer Engineering is a very sensitive major. It involves everything from creating data to manipulating and analyzing data. This data can have a huge financial and moral values. It is already established that this data is the main source of business models of big companies including google and Facebook. This put a huge responsibility on the engineers to works with ethics and make responsible decisions. Imagine how much damage can be done if one engineer decides to sell public data collected through an app to illegal firms.

 

Ethics can be defined as principle that governs one’s behavior. There are many factors contributing to person’s behavior including education, perception and atmosphere. There are many organizations like IEEE that have tried to regulate the norms and have defined code of ethics. The problem with these codes are that they are defined for ideal behavior and can be only applied in general situations. A person can get stuck in specific situations depending his work environment again putting the responsibility on the person.

 

Is ethical behavior is equivalent to lawful behavior? No. Not all unethical actions are illegal, they are just morally wrong. For example, picking up two chocolate bars from a box that says take one for free. It is not illegal, and no one will put you in jail, However, this is morally wrong. Again, the definition of ethical depend on a person’s perception. It is not necessary we all see things from same point of view. For example, Facebook is recording personal data to target audience for adds, Ethical? Some people might argue that they notify the customers while other might be against extreme surveillance.

 

I personally try to analyze a problem from different angles to measure the potential results before making a big decision. As a computer engineer it is crucial for me to maintain professionalism at workplace as well as school. I try to develop strategies and software’s in accordance to ethics declared by IEEE. I take care that I am maintaining confidentiality and stating all usage in terms and conditions. Customers should be aware of what they are supplying to users and what they should expect.