professional capacity. That is to say, I’m going to look at ways in which you can justify your professional decisions.
Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t want you to assume that ethics are relevant only when making decisions in the workplace. As we all know, to some degree, ethical considerations will form a part of every decision you make in your life. However, it is fair to say that, in the workplace, computer professionals have to be careful that they can’t be accused of negligence when designing or operating systems which have an effect on human life or property. Or, when developing software, that they aren’t producing a product which is not up to professional standards or which infringes the legal rights of copyright holders.
So in an attempt to keep the discussion on professional responsibility reasonably simple, I’m going to summarize a few of the more interesting points to do with the legal and regulatory aspects of professional decision-making in a work context.
Unit 11, Lesson 2, Exercise C≤2.14
Part 2 To start with, then, let’s look at the different types of law which computer professionals need to be aware of. These fall into two main categories – national laws and international laws. It is particularly important for computer professionals to have a good knowledge of which laws are relevant, because they can then be clear about when they are within the law or when they are at risk of breaking it. If their activities can be seen as breaking the law, then they will need to be in a position to justify their actions. They may defend themselves by using the principle of the ‘greatest good’ – stating that more people will benefit from their actions than will suffer from them. Or they may want to rely on their personal beliefs and principles of what is right or wrong. Either way, it is important that they have a knowledge of the different categories of law which can affect their decision- making.
Well, first let’s look at national legislation, passed
by countries in response to aspects of computing which were seen as harmful or problematic. The passing of privacy laws in the US is a good example of this. By the 1960s, computers had become sufficiently powerful for many US citizens to begin to see them as a potential danger. The greatest fear initially was of a ‘Big Brother’ society, that is to say a society in which the government
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would know everything about its citizens and could exercise total control over them. By the early 1960s – and this may surprise many of you – the US government had already created a number of large databases containing data from the US census, from tax payments, from military service records and a range of other sources. By combining all this information, the government could create a very detailed picture of every individual’s activities, giving the government unprecedented power over its citizens.
Public concern regarding government use of information from citizens grew to the extent that the Privacy Act was passed in 1974. The Act was criticized, however, because it was difficult to enforce and, not only that, but because it excluded the collection of data by companies and organizations other than government. Daniel Solove gives a good description of the issues around this in his 2004 book on technology and privacy in the information age. Briefly, in his chapter on information privacy law, he explains how the many exemptions and loopholes in the Act meant that it did not fully address the concerns which had led to it being passed.
However, it is fair to say that legislation in other countries, such as the UK Data Protection Act passed in 1984, addressed many of these criticisms. The Act placed a responsibility on all organizations involved in the processing of data relating to identifiable individuals, to meet the requirements of the Act by appointing a data controller and registering their databases with an information commissioner. With the growth in networked computers, the focus of concern broadened to include unauthorized access by hackers. An example of this type of legislation is the Computer Misuse Act, passed in 1990, which makes it an offence in the UK to access another person’s computer, or alter data on their computer, without the owner’s permission. The growth of the Internet has given rise to the term cybercrime – the use of a computer to carry out criminal activity – and increasingly, national laws are being passed to prevent this.
This brings us to another source of computer- related legislation, namely international treaties and conventions. A very good example is an international agreement called the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime. This treaty was aimed particularly at countries which have not yet updated their legal framework to reflect the complexities of the Internet. The crimes are divided into a number of different categories: these are data crimes, network crimes, access
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