General Ethical Principle

General Ethical Principle
A computing professional should:

1.1.
Contribute to Society and to Human W
ell
-
being, Acknowledging that all People
are Stakeholders in C
omputing
This
principle, wh ich concerns the quality of life of all people, affirms an
obligation of
computing professionals, both individually and collectively, to use
their skills for the
benefit of society, its members, and the environment surrounding them.
1.2.
Avoid Harm
In this document, "harm" means negative consequences,
especially when those
consequences are significant and unjust.
-
intended actions, including those that accomplish assigned duties,
may lead to harm.
When that harm is unintended, those responsible are obliged to undo or
mitigate the harm
as much as possible. Avoiding harm begins with careful consideration
of potential impacts
on all those affected by decisions. When harm is an intentional part
of the system, those
responsible are obligated to ensure that the harm is ethically justified.
In
either case,
ensure that all harm is minimized.
1.3.
Be Honest and Trustworthy
Honesty is an essential component of trustworthiness. A computing
professional should be
transparent and provide full disclosure of all pertinent system
capabilities, limita tions,
and
potential problems to the appropriate parties. Making deliberately false
or misleading
claims, fabricating or falsifying data, offering or accepting bribes, and
other dishonest
conduct are violations of the Code.
Computing professionals should be hones
t about their qualifications, and about any
limitations in their competence to complete a task. Computing
professionals should be
forthright about any circumstances that might lead to either real or
perceived conflicts of
interest or otherwise tend to unde
rmine the independence of their judgment. Furthermore,
commitments should be honored.
Computing professionals should not misrepresent an organization's policies
or procedures,
and should not speak on behalf of an organization unless authorized to do
so.
1.4.
Be
fair and take action not to discriminate
The values of equality, tolerance, respect for others, and justice
govern this principle.
Fairness requires that even careful decision processes provide some
avenue for redress of
grievances.
Computing professional
s should foster fair participation of all people, including those of
underrepresented groups. Prejudicial discrimination on the basis of
age, color, disability,
ethnicity, family status, gender identity, labor union membership,
military status,
nationality
, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, or any other inappropriate
factor
is an explicit violation of the Code. Harassment, including sexual
harassment, bullying, and
other abuses of power and authority, is a form of discrimination that, among
st other harms,
limits fair access to the virtual and physical spaces where such
harassment takes place.
Course Module
The use of information and technology may cause new, or enhance
existing, inequities.
Technologies and practices should be as inclusive and accessible
as possible and computing
professionals should take action to avoid creating systems or
technologies that
disenfranchise or oppress people. Failure to design for inclusiveness
and accessibility may
constitute unfair discrimination.
1.5.
Respect the work require
d to produce new ideas, inventions, creative works, and
computing artifacts.
Developing new ideas, inventions, creative works, and computing artifacts
creates value for
society, and those who expend this effort should expect to gain
value from their work.
Computing professionals should therefore credit the creators of ideas,
inventions, work,
and artifacts, and respect copyrights, patents, trade secrets, license
agreements, and other
methods of protecting authors' works.
Both custom and the law recognize th
at some exceptions to a creator's control of a work
are necessary for the public good. Computing professionals should
not unduly oppose
reasonable uses of their intellectual works. Efforts to help others by
contributing time and
energy to projects that hel
p society illustrate a positive aspect of this principle. Such efforts
include free and open source software and work put into the public
domain. Computing
professionals should not claim private ownership of work that they or
others have shared
as public r
esources.
1.6.
Respect Privacy
The responsibility of respecting privacy applies to computing
professionals in a
particularly profound way. Technology enables the collection,
monitoring, and exchange of
personal information quickly, inexpensively, and often with
out the knowledge of the
people affected. Therefore, a computing professional should become
conversant in the
various definitions and forms of privacy and should understand
the rights and
responsibilities associated with the collection and use of personal
information.
Computing professionals should only use personal information for
legitimate ends and
without violating the rights of individuals and groups. This requires
taking precautions to
prevent re
-
identification of anonymized data or unauthorized data
collection, ensuring the
accuracy of data, understanding the provenance of the data, and
protecting it from
unauthorized access and accidental disclosure. Computing
professionals should establish
transparent policies and procedures that allow individuals t
o understand what data is
being collected and how it is being used, to give informed consent
for automatic data
collection, and to review, obtain, correct inaccuracies in, and delete their
personal data.
Only the min imum amount of personal information nece
ssary should be collected in a
system. The retention and disposal periods for that information should
be clearly defined,
enforced, and communicated to data subjects. Personal information
gathered for a specific
purpose should not be used for other purpose
s without the person's consent. Merged data
collections can compromise privacy features present in the original
collections. Therefore,
computing professionals should take special care for privacy
when merging data
collections.
1.7.
Honor Confidentiality
Comput
ing professionals are often entrusted with confidential information such
as trade
secrets, client data, nonpublic business strategies, financial information,
research data, pre
-
publication scholarly articles, and patent applications. Computing
professional
s should
protect confidentiality except in cases where it is evidence of the
violation of law, of
organizational regulations, or of the Code. In these cases, the nature
or contents of that
information should not be disclosed except to appropriate
authoriti
es. A computing
professional should consider thoughtfully whether such disclosures are
consistent with the
Code.

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General Ethical Principle

A computing professional should:

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