T3 2019 ICT303 Assignment: Professional Ethics in Computing Case Study

This report analyzes a case study involving NewAge Pty Ltd, a company developing operating systems for XYZ Pty Ltd. The case highlights ethical breaches by employees Mr. McBright and Mrs. McDonald. The report examines software engineer codes of ethics, the lack of which led to system malfunction, privacy violations, and information disclosure failures. It delves into whistleblowing, software errors, privacy concerns, and natural rights to privacy, illustrating how the employees' actions, including concealing software deficiencies, resulted in a virus that damaged customer data and caused hardware failure. The analysis underscores the importance of ethical conduct, professional competence, and adherence to established codes of ethics within the computing field, emphasizing the consequences of prioritizing personal interests over professional responsibilities and the impact of these actions on stakeholders and the company's reputation. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for ethical principles and guidelines to govern employee behavior within the company.

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Professional Ethics in Computing
Student Name
1/26/2020

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Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Software engineer codes of ethics...............................................................................................................3
Whistle Blowing...........................................................................................................................................4
Software errors towards system malfunction.............................................................................................5
Privacy.........................................................................................................................................................5
Natural right to privacy................................................................................................................................6
Information disclosure................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................7
References...................................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
A NewAge Pty Ltd, a company in which Mr. MCBright is an employee whose work is to
develop operating system for a company named as XYZ Pty Ltd. The XYZ Pty Ltd is a
manufacturer company which manufactures tablet computers. Mr. McBright is head of testing
functions of the operating system that it is working properly or not, before sending to the XYZ
Pty Ltd. Mr. McBright is accountable to Mrs McDonald, she is so insecure for her job and do
every possible step to protect it. She never hires any employee competent to herself and even not
trains any of the subordinate for future goals. From the past years, she has not developed herself
for any higher profile. Her thinking for hiring employees is to check their colleges instead of
their eligibility and qualifications and due to all these reasons company suffered in practices of
software development, incompetent personnel. After this, while completing the target some
deficiency arises but both the employees decided to keep it as a secret and sent the operating
system to the company. Five weeks later the software introduced a virus, which damaged all the
customers’ records. Also, after passing of four months one of the tablets burst(Adelstein, &
Clegg, 2016).
The case shows the irresponsibility of Mr McBright and Mrs McDonald, the employees
of the company towards their duties and ignorance of ethics. There is a discussion of unethical
practices and mistake Mrs. McDonald under the following report.
Software engineer codes of ethics
In engineering, software is a significant tool and for that codes are also necessary. The
codes set for software engineer are to ensure the employees that no mistakes arise. To follow
code of ethics is basic and compulsory requirement for all the company managers, members,
employees and other person. The employees indulge in the preparation of software need to
remember these codes. There are five main code of ethics which need to be kept in mind while
working on a software and completing it. This reduces the chance of mistake(Bertrand, 2018)
Mr. McBright works to develop software for tablets. There are some software engineer codes
of ethics which are necessary to keep in mind while working or developing software such as:

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 Loyalty and Honesty
 Focus on objective
 Professional competence and due care
 Confidentiality
 Professional personality
All the codes of ethics are important as they set common standards and guidelines for
behavior. In the NewAge Pty Ltd, there is lack of code of ethics and Mrs McDonald just ignored
the principles. Mr McBright also supported Mrs McDonald in her affairs of wrong doing with the
objectives of the company. If they both had followed the code of ethics then the mistake couldn’t
have raised. Mrs McDonald always wanted to complete the target without care of mistakes,
faults, deficiencies etc. she never followed the code of professional competence and due care as
she never hired any employee of her competence. Also, she never guide, support or trained
subordinates for future career development. She was not honest with her job and breaks the code
of integrity. Therefore, employees were incompetent and it caused the bug in the software(Bloch,
Kenn, & Smith, 2018)
The behavior of Mrs. McDonald was not professional and she did cheating with her job
duties. Mrs. McDonald, to complete the target at time not rechecked and corrected the mistakes
arose. Although, Mrs. McDonald is responsible and need to be sue for the wrong done by her due
to insecurity for her job(Caillier, 2017)
Whistle Blowing
The act of persons to open the wrong done or unethical activities in their work or at any other
place is termed as whistle blowing. It means an illegal operation or activity is running and
stopped by a person called as whistleblower. The whistle blowing benefits a lot such as, fraud
detection, good corporate governance, workplace safety and company officer’s protection. In the
given case, Mrs. McDonald was continuously doing wrong and illegal activities to complete the
project and none of the employee stopped her from doing this. Even, Mr McBright after knowing
the facts did not took any action and supported Mrs. McDonald. Therefore, there was no whistle
blower in the company. Whistle blower means a person who blows the whistle while disclosing

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the information and put a stop to illegal activities. There are bunch of activities running in the
company are known as unethical or indiscipline. There are two type of whistle blowing:
 Internal – in this the whistle blowers inform the senior office of the company about
unethical or illegal activities.
 External – in this the whistle blower reports to outsider which can be any agency or
private officer(Cox, La Caze, & Levine, 2018)
Software errors towards system malfunction
The software errors means any deviation between actual and the expected output of a
product. They are conducted unintentionally or done by mistake. The work is getting faster and
speedy which creates mistake or tiny errors. They can be corrected easily or ignorance of that
will not harm anyone. But the mistake needs to be done accidentally and not intentionally. If any
mistake conducted intentionally will be punishable or serious action can be taken. Software
errors that lead to system malfunction are those which are conducted deliberately. And those
errors can create huge or massive destruction. However, any mistake or error happened by
chance will not be called as system malfunction. In the given case, Mrs. McDonald and Mr.
McBright was knowing about an error in the operating system and instead of correcting it they
sent it to the XYX Pty Ltd. Also, they have not informed about that error to anyone or the
manufacture company. The XYZ Pty Ltd, installed that software in the tablets computer. After
five weeks the operating system created a virus which ruined all the data of Badluck Bank. The
fault was too much that it burst one of the tablets. This leads to system malfunction(Dobel,
2016).
Privacy
The word itself has a broader meaning and includes many terms. Privacy is an inherent
right of all the human being and company or business too. It means to protect or keep safe
personal or private information regarding business. Privacy is a right provide to everyone. To
keep your personal information in privacy or protected zone is not illegal. But it also includes

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reasonable restrictions. To keep privacy of personal information or confidential information is
allowed but keeping privacy of any wrong done or illegal activity is not allowed. To go beyond
the limit or reasonable restriction then there are punishments prescribed by the government or the
Act or the company itself. In the given case, Mr. McBright and Mrs. McDonald kept a secret of
deficiency in their software just to complete the work on time and maintain their image. Thus,
hiding this information does not refer as keeping privacy because it created lot of damages. Even
it was an illegal act. Therefore, both MR. McBright and Mrs. McDonald are responsible for the
fault in software installed and destruction caused(Fried, 2016).
Natural right to privacy
It is given by the constitution of the country to everyone whether humans or any
company. In information technology companies there is need for privacy as to save data,
information, system, software, records etc. Natural Right of privacy is applicable to all and
necessary to apply. To keep information private is not wrong however to keep any unethical
information as a private or secret is wrong. Therefore, there are certain exceptions that, it will not
applicable when there is some sort of privacy or secret which amounts to be illegal or unethical.
Natural right of privacy applies only to legal activities. In the given case, a virus is detected
called McDonaldBug which damaged all the data of customers kept by Badluck Bank. Also,
after 3-4 months of installation of software one of the tablets burst into frames and huge loss
caused to TastyBurgers Pty Ltd. This all happened due to deficiency in software. Mr. McBright
and Mrs McDonald were known of deficiency but they ignored that and sent to XYZ Pty Ltd.
Therefore, here they both cannot take the benefit of natural right of privacy in any of the court
proceedings(Gasevic, Dawson, & Jovanovic, 2016).
Information disclosure
It means to reveal the information which can be any secret or normal disclosure. There is
a rule of disclosure of information by the companies or members of the company to other
company, partner, directors, staff, general public or any other related person. Companies are
required to disclose the information prescribed in the rules and guidelines. Information

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Disclosure is a compulsory requirement and need to fulfill by everyone. But there are certain
restrictions for the information disclosure such as, not need to disclose any confidential
information or any secret that can harm the company’s image or any other company can take
benefit of that information. Therefore, only required information is disclosed. Sometimes it
happens that the information revealed was earlier not known to the public. This can be a secret or
any valuable information and can create problem to company. Also, many employees or
company members hide many things to save themselves which is not right and leads to unethical
activity. In the given case, there is requirement of disclosure by Mrs. McDonald of the deficiency
in the operating system but they did not disclose it and a problem raised. Although, they have
broke the rules and regulations of the company and violation of natural justice by not informing
about their fault to the manufacture company. Also, Mrs. McDonald not informed her
subordinates their duties properly because of which defect arise(Richardson, 2017).
Conclusion
The above report shows that all the companies need to follow the ethical principles of
fundamental. The principles guide companies and its employees for their behavior towards
objectives of the company. The NewAge Pty Ltd, a company who develops software for a tablet
manufacture. In this company there are two employees they are Mr. McBright and Mrs
McDonald. Mr. McBright, in charge of testing functions of operating system. The employees for
their work to get complete on time ignored the mistakes or deficiencies and just wanted to finish
the project. After they completed the project Mr McBright got to know of deficiency in operating
system and informed Mrs. McDonald but both agreed to keep it as a secret and hide it. They
transfer the operating system to XYZ Pty Ltd without informing about fault. After that XYZ Pty
Ltd installed the software in tablets computer and after five weeks, a virus came into the system
and quash all the information of customers managed by Badluck Bank. Also a tablet got burst
after four months of installation. All this happen because of Mr McBright and Mrs McDonald
irresponsibility towards their work. They both are equally responsible for their illegal work.
Mr McBright and Mrs McDonald compromised with the quality of system and done
wrong with XYZ Pty Ltd. They both kept the deficiency in operating system as a secret which is
unethical and not required to be hidden. There act does not comes in natural right of privacy or

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nor any personal information. They have broken the rule of integrity, confidentiality, competent
personnel, professional behavior etc. Also, Mrs McDonlad was very insecure for her job and
never allowed any person to come in competence with her. Because of Mrs McDonald the
deficiency in operating system arises as she did not train the subordinates as per project
requirements and not guided for the software. Therefore, operating system was not able to work
accurately and for long run.

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