IT Ethics Case Study: Applying ACS Codes of Professional Conduct

This case study delves into the ethical dilemmas faced by a software programmer, Faisal, who discovers a security vulnerability in a client's database system. Despite raising the issue with his manager, he is instructed to prioritize the functionality of their software over addressing the security risk. The analysis examines this situation through the lens of the ACS Code of Professional Conduct, highlighting violations of principles such as primacy of public interest, honesty, professional development, and professionalism. Furthermore, the case is evaluated using various ethical theories including utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, and contract theory, each revealing the manager's actions as unethical due to the potential harm to clients and the breach of professional and moral obligations. The study emphasizes the importance of ethical considerations in IT and the responsibility of professionals to uphold these standards.

Running head: IT ETHICS
IT Ethics
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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Table of Contents
Part 1: ACS Codes of Professional Conduct..............................................................................3
Part 2: Ethical Theory................................................................................................................5
References..................................................................................................................................8

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Part 1: ACS Codes of Professional Conduct
Question 1
Although, the first couple of weeks were smoother, however after that during a
normal test on the developed software, Faisal discovered a major security hole within the
database system of company Y by which hackers could easily gain confidential data
regarding the customers (Dewey 2016). However, when he told this to his manager, his
manager replied that it was not their headache as long as the organizational software
functions were working perfectly. This was one of the major ethical issue in the given case
study.
Question 2
As per an ethical point of view, this is absolutely unethical for the manager of
Company Z to suppress the news of security hole in the database system of company Y and
hence there is a high chance that the hackers could easily get into the database system and
obtain all types of confidential information or data (Peters 2015). Moreover, when Faisal
mentioned about this issue to his manager, he was reluctant and also mentioned to ensure that
their software functions are working perfectly. Faisal was hence in a significant dilemma that
whether he should obey or disobey his manager.
Question 3
The manager of Company Z and the security manager of Company Y are majorly
responsible for this type of action in the provided case study. At first, the security manager of
Company Y is responsible in this scenario since he or she did not consider or check the
security system and database system of the company and hence this kind of security hole has
taken place (Kagan 2018). Moreover, he or she has also taken any security precaution or

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measure for the threat. The manager of Company Z is responsible as even after getting
notified by Faisal regarding this type of security breach, he did not take any action.
Question 4
Faisal and his work as well as moral ethics are highly affected in the action.
Moreover, the database system of Company Y is also affected as the security hole could bring
major security breaches to the company’s confidential data.
Question 5
Faisal is strongly affected in the scenario as when he reported to his manager, his
manager did not support him and his moral and work ethics are affected in the case (Dewey
2016). Faisal is in moral dilemma of what should be done and hence he is not being able to
properly do his work and even is demotivated majorly.
Question 6
Mr. Faisal is working at Company Z as a software programmer and he was assigned
the significant task to develop a software program, which could handle the access as well as
retrieval of records from Company X’s database system into Company Y’s database.
However, the security hole identified was not notified to the Company Y. The values of ACS
code that are suitable to the given case study are the primacy of the public interest, honesty,
professional development and professionalism (McDermid 2015). None of the above
mentioned values of ACS code of ethics has been followed in this case study by the manager
since he had placed his personal interests and profits on top most priority.
Question 7

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The values of ACS code that are suitable to the given case study are the primacy of
the public interest, honesty, professional development and professionalism. The reasons are
as follows:
i) The Primacy of the Public Interest: The manager of Company Z did not put or
place the interests of the Company Y above of his personal and business interests. He was
only concerned about his own software functions.
ii) Honesty: The manager of Company Z was not being honest and ethical in terms of
work ethics and thus he did not mention it to the Company Y (McDermid 2015).
iii) Professional Development: The professional development of Faisal was affected
in the entire scenario and hence the manager of Company Z was strongly responsible for this.
iv) Professionalism: The value of professionalism was highly affected and manager
even lost the integrity of work ethics and respect of Faisal.
Part 2: Ethical Theory
Question 8
As per utilitarianism theory, a specified action should be selected that provides
maximum utility to the respective individuals or society that is majorly defined for producing
greatest wellbeing of several number of people. This particular ethical theory is responsible
for selecting right and wrong actions on the basis of results. It holds a significant ethical
choice for producing the greatest good to the greatest number of people (Mill 2016). As the
link within actions are dependent on happy and unhappy results on the basis of circumstances
and no moral principle is required in this case. For this particular case study, the action of the
manager is completely unethical in nature and is not providing any utility to the society of
their clients. Therefore, as per utilitarianism theory, this case study is unethical.

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Question 9
According to deontology theory or deontological ethics, the morality of the action
must be checked on the basis of whether that specific action is right or wrong under a series
of riles and not only on the basis of the defined set of rules or policies to properly function a
system within the respective environment. It is hence based on the checklist that involves the
rules to be followed during performance of a task and the work is considered to be virtuous
only when the checklist is being completed (Paquette, Sommerfeldt and Kent 2015). In this
particular case study, the respective rules and morals of work ethics are not being followed by
the manager of Company Y and hence according to deontology theory, it is unethical in
nature. Moreover, he did not allow to check the moral obligations.
Question 10
Virtue ethics is the ethical theory, which focus on the virtues as well as other
attributes of mind and character of the specified individual. The various problems like how
virtues are being acquired and how they are being applied in the real life scenarios are
properly addressed by virtue ethics. One can be termed as ethical in nature only when the
character based virtues are followed by him effectively (Hursthouse and Crisp 2013). In this
case study, Faisal’s manager is neither notifying the Company Y himself nor he is letting
Faisal to notify that organization regarding the database’s security hole and hence these types
of issues have raised in the company. Hence, the manager of Company Z could be termed as
unethical in respect to the virtue ethics.
Question 11
As per contract theory, there is an ethical contract between an each and every
employee of the organization with their clients and business partners. It is extremely
important for every organizational employee to maintain this contract without failure and

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hence the company would be benefitted and the customers could be satisfied majorly.
However, when this ethical contract is not followed properly, the organization as well as the
members are termed as unethical in nature (Neiman 2013). In this particular case study, since
Company Z has been transferring data from the databases of Company X and Y, it was quite
important to maintain an ethical work ethics and without this type of work ethics present in
the manager of Company Z, he is termed as unethical in nature.

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References
Dewey, J., 2016. Ethics. Read Books Ltd.
Hursthouse, R. and Crisp, R., 2013. Normative virtue ethics. Ethica, 645.
Kagan, S., 2018. Normative ethics. Routledge.
McDermid, D., 2015. Ethics in ICT: an Australian perspective. Pearson Higher Education
AU.
Mill, J.S., 2016. Utilitarianism. In Seven Masterpieces of Philosophy (pp. 337-383).
Routledge.
Neiman, P., 2013. A social contract for international business ethics. Journal of Business
Ethics, 114(1), pp.75-90.
Paquette, M., Sommerfeldt, E.J. and Kent, M.L., 2015. Do the ends justify the means?
Dialogue, development communication, and deontological ethics. Public Relations
Review, 41(1), pp.30-39.
Peters, R.S., 2015. Ethics and Education (Routledge Revivals). Routledge.