Ethical Concerns
02 Apr 2020
Commitment
First off, I believe that in regards to software engineering, “ethics” is defined as a set of guidelines and expectations that are universally accepted as the norm for a software engineer. Loosely speaking, it is what programmers and engineers “ought to do” in every situation that they may find themselves in, whether in a professional or a personal setting. While it is expected that everyone does the right thing, not everything may be black and white and may cause individuals to look for an answer past this ethical dilemma that may lead to their own variation of an ethical code. While software engineers may develop such a code for themselves in their own way, by adding on more guidelines to fit more situations, there should always exist a “default” code of ethics that everyone should follow to ensure at least the minimum to be considered a trustworthy person.
A Breach of Privacy
In software engineering and ethical dilemmas as a whole, one of the biggest topics that is focused on is the issue of privacy. We live in a modern world that is surrounded with technology and software that requires our information at all times. In this way, how can anyone stay truly anonymous when accessing the internet? I will be focusing on this topic by discussing the famous case of Google StreetView. Launched in 2007, Google StreetView allowed access to view photographs, both aerial and grounded, of almost anywhere in the world. While this proposed a massive privacy risk to many people, it wasn’t the only issue. In 2010, it was found that the Google vehicles that used software to take the photographs were also collecting personal data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks, including SSID’s, device identifiers, medical and financial records, passwords and email content For the general public, this was a massive breach of privacy that showed how susceptable their information was to be collected and kept without their knowledge. For Google, the only thing they could do was to initially deny the claims, hoping that it would pass over. Eventually, Google admitted to their wrongdoings and took responsibility for their actions. However, while the news sounds quite big, many people nowadays still don’t understand how their personal information are being collected everyday without their knowledge. However, regarding this controversy, in what ways did Google break this “code of ethics”?
Violations
Despite the actions that Google are taking to remedy their violations, this event showed that, in many ways, Google breached the “code of ethics” in many ways. First, their software, while intending to accomplish a public duty, presented several complications in regards to ethics. The most obvious guideline is honoring confidentiality. This being the main focal point of their software and the controversy at whole. Also, Google StreetView ended up unintentionally harming many users and, in the grand scale, the general public. As a result of the program, photographs were open for the general public to view and displayed explicit content that breached people’s privacy. More than that, people with bad intentions were able to abuse the nature of the software to fulfill their goals. While this was unintended, it was up to Google to fix their wrongdoings and mitigate the harm, which they eventually did try to fix. In addition, Google breached the code of honesty and trustworthiness. In essence, by collecting data from the public behind their backs, Google damaged the trust between the consumer and the company. Not only that, they also lied to the public about not collecting such data and eventually backpedeling to mitigate the controversy. This showed that Google not only broke the code of honesty, but also broke an oath to be a benefit to society. In many ways, Google could have mitigated the issue to comply with the code of ethics. Google engineers and managers should have realized how much of a privacy risk their software was to people and could have taken actions to reduce such information being used for malicious purposes. Things such as censoring faces, license plates, home addresses, etc, could have been one way. Another way is to be as honest as possible to the public, ensuring that while information may be collected, they would do their utmost to ensure complete security of private information and taken responsibility from the beginning. By keeping the interest of the general public and their security first and foremost, Google could have kept in line with the code of ethics and avoided such a big of a controversy as what they had. Finally, for every new product Google intends to release, these promises of security should be kept above all else to ensure that the trust is never broken between the consumers and the company.