ACM and BCS Professional Codes

The term “professional” refers to a group of individuals who work in a similar area, who have taken specialist training
and who share a common goal of maintaining high working standards. Today there are many professional bodies,
dealing specifically with the professional use of computer systems.
One of the definitions of a profession is that it defines appropriate standards of behavior for those working in its
specified field. To ensure these standards are maintained, professional organizations will provide for regulation of their
members. Professional codes of conduct are the formal expression of these expectations and requirements.

There are important reasons why professional codes of conduct exist including:
 To allow those inside and outside a profession (including the public) to evaluate exactly what may be
appropriately expected from members of that profession.
 To provide clear and public definitions of what is and what is not viewed as acceptable professional behavior.
 To allow the profession as a whole to support an individual who is maintaining an agreed viewpoint.
In the UK, the professional body for computer scientists is the British Computer Society (BCS), while in and beyond
the USA is the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).

Codes of conduct developed by professional organizations may not refer just to the behavior of members. While a code
of conduct may have been drawn up by a particular specialized professional body, this does not mean that the contents
of the code are consequently of relevance only to members of that particular association. The codes are of concern to
everyone working within that area. Whether an individual working in a particular field is a member of several relevant
professional bodies, or one, or none, they need to be aware of what the relevant bodies consider as appropriate and in
appropriate behavior.

British Computer Society of Conduct

Rules of professional conduct
As an aid to understanding, these rules have been grouped in the principal duties, which all members should endeavor
to discharge in pursuing their professional lives.

The public interest

1 Members shall in their professional practice safeguard public health and safety and have regard to the
protection of the environment.
2 Members shall have due regard to the legitimate rights of third parties.
3 Members shall ensure that within their chosen fields they have knowledge and understanding of relevant
legislation, regulations and standards and that they comply with such requirements.
4 Members shall in their professional practice have regard to basic human rights and shall avoid any actions that
adversely affect such rights.

Duty to employers and clients

5 Members shall carry out work with due care and diligence in accordance with the requirements of the
employer or client and shall, if their professional judgement is overruled, indicate the like consequences.
6 Members shall endeavour to complete work undertaken on time and to budget and shall advise their employer
or client as soon as practicable if any overrun is foreseen.
7 Members shall not offer or provide, or receive in return, any inducement for the introduction of business from
a client unless there is full prior disclosure of the facts to that client.
8 Members shall not disclose or authorize to be disclosed, or use for personal gain or to benefit a third party,
confidential information acquired in the course of professional practice, except with prior written permission
of the employer or client or at the direction of a court of law.
9 Members should seek to avoid being put in a position where they may become privy to or party to activities or
information concerning activities which would conflict with their responsibilities in 1-4 above.
10 Members should not misrepresent or withhold information on the capabilities of products, systems or services
with which they are concerned or take advantage of the lack of knowledge or inexperience of others.
11 Members shall not, except where specifically so instructed, handle client’s monies or place contracts or orders
in connection with work on which they knowingly have any interest, financial or otherwise.
12 Members shall not purport to exercise independent judgement on behalf of a client on any product or service
which they knowingly have any interest, financial or otherwise.

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 Duty to the profession
13 Members shall uphold the reputation of the profession and shall seek to improve professional standards
through the participation in their development, use and enforcement, and shall avoid any action, which will
adversely the good standing of the profession.
14 Members shall in their professional practice seek to advance public knowledge and understanding of
computing and information systems and technology and to counter false or misleading statements, which are
detrimental to the profession.
15 Members shall encourage and support fellow members in their professional development and, where possible,
provide opportunities for the professional development of new entrants to the profession.
16 Members shall act with integrity towards other members and to members of other professions with whom they
are concerned in a professional capacity and shall avoid in engaging in any activity, which is incompatible
with professional status.
17 Members shall not make any public statement in their professional capacity unless properly qualified and,
where appropri8ate, authorized to do so, and shall have due regard to the likely consequences of any such
statement on others.

Professional competence and integrity

18 Members shall seek to upgrade their professional knowledge and skill and shall maintain awareness of
technological developments, procedures and standards which are relevant to their field, and shall encourage
their subordinates to do likewise.
19 Members shall seek to conform to recognized good practice, including quality standards which are in their
judgement relevant and shall encourage their subordinates to do likewise.
20 Members shall only offer to do work or provide service which is within their professional competence and
shall not lay claim to any level of competence which they do not possess, and any professional opinion which
they are asked to give shall be objective and reliable.
21 Members shall accept professional responsibility for their work and for the work of subordinates and
associates under their direction and shall not terminate any assignment except for good reason and on
reasonable notice.
22 Members shall avoid any situation that may give rise to a conflict of interest between themselves and their
client and shall make full and immediate disclosure to the client if any such conflict should occur.

Association for Computing Machinery Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct

General moral imperatives

As an ACM member I will:

1.1 Contribute to society and human well being
1.2 Avoid harm to others
1.3 Be honest and trustworthy.
1.4 Be fair and take action not to discriminate.
1.5 Honour property rights including copyrights and patents.
1.6 Give proper credit for intellectual property.
1.7 Respect the privacy of others.
1.8 Honour confidentiality.

2 More specific professional responsibilities

As an ACM computing professional, I will

2.1 Strive to achieve the highest quality, effectiveness, and dignity in both the process and products of
professional work.
2.2 Acquire and maintain professional competence.
2.3 Know and respect existing laws pertaining to professional work.
2.4 Accept and provide appropriate professional review.
2.5 Give comprehensive and thorough evaluations of computer systems and their impacts, including analysis of
possible risk.
2.6 Honour contracts, agreements, and assigned responsibilities.
2.7 Improve public understanding of computing and its consequences.
2.8 Access computing and communication resources only when authorized to do so.

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3 Organizational leadership imperatives

As an ACM member and an organizational leader I will:

3.1 Articulate social responsibilities of an organization unit and encourage full acceptance of those responsibilities.
3.2 Manage personnel and resources to design and build information systems that enhance the quality of working
life.
3.3 Acknowledge and support proper and authorized uses of an organization’s computing and communication
resources.
3.4 Ensure that users and those who will be affected by a system have their needs clearly articulated during the
assessment and design of requirements; later, the system must be validated to meet [its] requirements.
3.5 Articulate and support policies that protect the dignity of users and others affected by a computing system.
3.6 Create opportunities for members of the organization to learn the principles and limitations of computer
systems.

4 Compliance with the code

As an ACM member, I will:

4.1 Uphold and promote the principles of this code.
4.2 Treat violations of this code as inconsistent with membership in the ACM.

MORAL PHILOSOPHY
This is the systemizing defending and recommending concepts of right or wrong behavior. Although its also referred to
as ethics, it deals more with values.

Moral philosophy is not directly practical as it does not tell us what to do but philosophical debate can lead to deciding
whether some beliefs should be taken up or followed if the are inconsistent or based on factual assumptions which are
false.

Today in western societies more people are employed collecting, handling and distributing information than in any
other occupation. Millions of computers inhabit the earth and many millions of miles of optical fiber, wire and air
waves link people, their computers and the vast array of information handling devices together. Our society is truly an
information society, our time an information age. The question before us now is whether the kind of society being
created is the one we want. It is a question that should especially concern those of us in the MIS community for we are
in the forefront of creating this new society.

There are many unique challenges we face in this age of information. They stem from the nature of information itself.
Information is the means through which the minds expands and increases its capacity to achieve its goals, often as the
result of an input from another mind. Thus, information forms the intellectual capital from which human beings craft
their lives and secure dignity.

However, the building of intellectual capital is vulnerable in many ways. For example, people's intellectual capital is
impaired whenever they lose their personal information without being compensated for it, when they are precluded
access to information which is of value to them, when they have revealed information they hold intimate, or when they
find out that the information upon which their living depends is in error. The social contract among people in the
information age must deal with these threats to human dignity. The ethical issues involved are many and varied,
however, it is helpful to focus on just four. These may be summarized by means of an acronym -- PAPA.

Privacy: What information about one's self or one's associations must a person reveal to others, under what conditions
and with what safeguards? What things can people keep to them and not be forced to reveal to others?
Accuracy: Who is responsible for the authenticity, fidelity and accuracy of information? Similarly, who is to be held
accountable for errors in information and how is the injured party to be made whole?
Property: Who owns information? What are the just and fair prices for its exchange? Who owns the channels,
especially the airways, through which information is transmitted? How should access to this scarce resource be
allocated?

Accessibility: What information does a person or an organization have a right or a privilege to obtain, under what
conditions and with what safeguards?

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 Privacy
What information should one be required to divulge about one's self to others? Under what conditions? What
information should one be able to keep strictly to one's self? These are among the questions that a concern for privacy
raises. Today more than ever, cautious citizens must be asking these questions.
Two forces threaten our privacy. One is the growth of information technology, with its enhanced capacity for
surveillance, communication, computation, storage, and retrieval. A second, and more insidious threat, is the increased
value of information in decision-making. Information is increasingly valuable to policy makers; they covet it even if
acquiring it invades another's privacy.

A case in point is the situation that occurred a few years ago in Florida. The Florida legislature believed that the state's
building codes might be too stringent and that, as a result, the taxpayers were burdened by paying for buildings which
were underutilized. Several studies were commissioned. In one study at the Tallahassee Community College, monitors
were stationed at least one day a week in every bathroom.

Every 15 seconds, the monitor observed the usage of the toilets, mirrors, sinks and other facilities and recorded them on
a form. This data was subsequently entered into a database for further analyses. Of course the students, faculty and staff
complained bitterly,
Accuracy
Misinformation has a way of fouling up people's lives, especially when the party with the inaccurate information has an
advantage in power and authority.
Property
One of the most complex issues we face as a society is the question of intellectual property rights. There are substantial
economic and ethical concerns surrounding these rights; concerns revolving around the special attributes of information
itself and the means by which it is transmitted. Any individual item of information can be extremely costly to produce
in the first instance. Yet, once it is produced, that information has the illusive quality of being easy to reproduce and to
share with others. Moreover, this replication can take place without destroying the original. This makes information
hard to safeguard since, unlike tangible property, it becomes communicable and hard to keep it to one's self. It is even
difficult to secure appropriate reimbursements when somebody else uses your information.
We currently have several imperfect institutions that try to protect intellectual property rights. Copyrights, patents,
encryption, oaths of confidentiality, and such old fashioned values as trust worthiness and loyalty are the most
commonly used protectors of our intellectual property. Problem issues, however, still abound in this area. Let us focus
on just one aspect: artificial intelligence and its expanding subfield, expert systems.

To fully appreciate our moral plight regarding expert systems it is necessary to run back the clock a bit, about two
hundred years, to the beginnings of another society: the steam energy-industrial society. From this vantage point we
may anticipate some of the problems of the information society.
Access
Our main avenue to information is through literacy. Literacy, since about 1500 A.D. when the Syrians first conceived a
consonant alphabet, has been a requirement for full participation in the fabric of society. Each innovation in
information handling, from the invention of paper to the modern computer, has placed new demands on achieving
literacy. In a information society a citizen must possess at least three things to be literate:
- One must have the intellectual skills to deal with information. These are skill such as reading, writing, reasoning, and
calculating. This is a task for education.

- One must have access to the information technologies, which store, convey and process information. This includes
libraries, radios, televisions, telephones, and increasingly, personal computers or terminals linked via networks to
mainframes. This is a problem in social economics.

- Finally, one must have access to the information itself. This requirement returns to the issue of property and is also a
problem in social economics.

These requirements for literacy are a function of both the knowledge level and the economic level of the individual.
Unfortunately, for many people in the world today both of these levels are currently deteriorating.

These are powerful factors working both for and against contemporary literacy in our organizations and in our society.
For example, the cost of computation, as measured in, say dollars per MIPS (millions of instructions per second,), has
gone down exponentially since the introduction of computers. This trend has made technology more accessible and
economically attainable to more people. However, corporations and other public and private organizations have

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benefited the most from these economies. As a result, cost economies in computation are primarily available to middle
and upper income people. At the same time computer usage flourishes among some,
PAPA
Privacy, accuracy, property and accessibility, these are the four major issues of information ethics for the information
age. Max Plank's 1900 conception that energy was released in small discrete packets called "quanta" not only gave rise
to atomic theory but also permitted the development of information technology as well. Semiconductors, transistors,
integrated circuits, photoelectric cells, vacuum tubes, and ferrite cores are among the technological yield of this
scientific theory. In a curious way, quantum theory underlies the four issues as well. Plank's theory, and all that
followed it, have led us to a point where the stakes surrounding society's policy agenda are incredibly high. At stake
with the use of nuclear energy is the very survival of mankind itself. If we are unwise we will either blow our severs up
or contaminate our world forever with nuclear waste. At stake with the increased use of information technology is the
quality of our lives should we, or our children, survive. If we are unwise many people will suffer information
bankruptcy or desolation.
Our moral imperative is clear. We must insure that information technology, and the information it handles, are used to
enhance the dignity of mankind. To achieve these goals we must formulate a new social contract, one that insures
everyone the right to fulfill his or her own human potential.

 In the new social contract, information systems should not unduly invade a person's privacy.

 Information systems must be accurate.

 Information systems should protect the viability of the fixed conduit resource through which it is transmitted
to avoid noise and jamming pollution.

 Information systems should protect the sanctity of intellectual property to avoid the indignities of unwitting
"disembodiment" of knowledge from individuals.

 And information systems should be accessible to avoid the indignities of information literacy and deprivation.

This is a tall order; but it is one that we in the MIS community should address. We must assume some responsibility for
the social contract that emerges from the systems that we design and implement. In summary, we must insure that the
flow of those little packets of

Moral Philosophy
Moral philosophy is the area of philosophy concerned with theories of ethics, with how we ought to
live our lives. It is divided into three areas: metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics.

METAETHICS
Metaethics is the most abstract area of moral philosophy. It deals with questions about the nature of
morality, about what morality is and what moral language means.

Cognitivism
Cognitivists hold that moral statements are descriptive, they attribute real moral properties to
people or actions. There are two types of cognitivist: naturalists and non-naturalists.
Naturalists hold that moral properties are natural properties. This means that it is possible to give a
complete analysis of morality in non-moral terms, to reduce the moral to the non-moral.
Non-naturalists hold that moral properties are not natural properties, but rather are a unique kind of
property that cannot be explained in any other terms. Just as Cartesian dualists hold that there are
two fundamentally different kinds of entity in the world, physical and mental, and that neither can
be explained in terms of the other, so the ethical non-naturalist holds that there are two

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fundamentally different kinds of property in the world, non-moral and moral, and that morality
cannot be reduced to non-moral terms.

Noncognitivism
Noncognitivism is the view that moral truths are not the kind of truths that can be known. There are
a number of types of noncognitivist theory, each of which provides a slightly different analysis of
moral statements. What they have in common is that each of their analyses renders moral
statements as neither true nor false. In order to be known, though, a statement must be true. If then,
as the noncognitivist holds, no moral statements has a truth-value, then moral truths cannot be
known

NORMATIVE ETHICS
While metaethics treats the most abstract questions of moral philosophy, normative ethics is more
concerned with providing a moral framework that can be used in order to work out what kinds of
action are good and bad, right and wrong. There are three main traditions in normative ethics:
virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism.

Virtue Ethics
Virtue ethics goes back to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. According to virtue theory,
ethics is primarily about agents, not actions. Being good is thus seen as primarily a matter of
character rather than of deeds.
The first task for the virtue theorist is that of providing an account of the virtues. In general terms,
virtues are character traits, dispositions to act in certain ways, that it is good to possess. They are to
be contrasted with vices, character traits that it is bad to possess.
On Aristotle’s account, virtues always fall between two extremes, vices of excess and deficiency.
The virtue courage thus falls between foolhardiness (a vice of excess) and cowardice (a vice of
deficiency).
There are several traditional lists of virtues, such as that of the cardinal virtues, telling us how it is
good for us to be. According to Aristotle, the way to acquire these virtues is through habituation,
practice.
Virtue theory has a number of strengths that give it an advantage over other approaches to ethics. In
particular, it does not rely on any concept of a divine law, and does not reduce ethics to action. It is
also, however, subject to several objections.

Deontology
The central claim of deontologists is that certain types of act are intrinsically right or wrong, i.e.
right or wrong in themselves, irrespective of their consequences.
This is in stark contrast to consequentialism, which holds that the moral status of an act is
determined entirely by its consequences. Consequentialists hold that any act, even those acts that
we would normally classify as morally wrong, is morally good if it has good consequences. In the
view of the consequentialist, the end justified the means; it is morally permissible to use
distasteful means (e.g. lying, stealing, physical violence, etc.) in order to achieve good ends (e.g.
happiness, alleviation of suffering, etc.).

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The deontologist is opposed to this approach; certain acts, the deontologist holds, should never be
performed, even if performing them would lead to good consequences. This is the central thesis of
deontology.
There are three main deontological theories: Kantian ethics, divine command theory, and agapism.
Kantian Ethics
The most famous deontologist is Immanuel Kant. Kantian ethics is firmly based in reason; we can
derive moral laws from rational precepts, according to Kant, and anyone who behaves immorally
also behaves irrationally. He stated the moral law thus derived in the form of the Categorical
Imperative, which in many ways resembles the biblical injunction to “do unto others as you would
that they should do unto you.”
Divine Command Theory
A second deontological theory is divine command theory. Divine command theory holds that God’s
commands are the source of ethics, that God is a moral authority and we ought always to obey his
commands, irrespective of the consequences of doing so.
Agapism
A further deontological ethical theory, also influenced by the Christian tradition, is agapism.
Agapism, which derives its name from the Greek word “agape” meaning “love”, takes very
seriously the great commandment of Mark 12:30-31: “you shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart... you shall love your neighbour as yourself.” All of ethics, according to agapism, is
summarised in this commandment. Agapism is a deontological system of ethics consisting of one
simple command: in every situation, do the loving thing, whatever that may be.

Consequentialism
Consequentialism is the theory that the moral status of an act is determined by its consequences.
Consequentialism thus rejects both the virtue ethicist’s view that the moral status of an act is
determined by the moral character of the agent performing it, and the deontologist’s view that the
moral status of an act is determined by the type of act that it is. According to consequentialism,
each of these factors is morally irrelevant. All that matters is what consequences an act leads to.
The only consequentialist theory of any plausibility is utilitarianism. Utilitarianism comes in many
forms, but in each of them it holds that we ought to act in the way that has the best consequences,
usually that we ought to maximise the good and minimise the bad.

Applied Ethics
The most down to earth area of moral philosophy is applied ethics. This seeks to apply normative
ethical theories to specific cases to tell us what is right and what is wrong. In this section, various
thorny ethical issues are discussed: e.g. abortion, animal rights, and punishment.

Animal Rights
Animal rights...
Peter Carruthers argues that animals do not have significant moral value. He makes this claim
because he believes that animals lack consciousness.
Peter Singer approaches the question of animal rights from a utilitarian perspective. Just as the
happiness of men is no more important than the happiness of women, and the happiness of
caucasians is no more important than the happiness of asians, so, he suggests, the happiness of

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humans is no more important than the happiness of non-humans. We have recognised that sexism
and racism are evils that must be overcome; we should do the same for speciesism.
Punishment
There are two competing approaches to punishment: consequentialist (or utilitarian) and
deontological.
The consequentialist approach holds that we punish people because of the positive effects that
this has on society. Specifically, there are three purposes that punishment can serve:
punishment can protect us from dangerous criminals, confining them to prison; punishment can
turn dangerous criminals into valuable members of society, rehabilitating them; punishment
deters other would be criminals, reducing crime. This, according to the consequentialist, is why
we are justified in punishing people: it makes the world a better place.
The deontological approach to justifying punishment focuses not on the consequences of punishing
criminals, but on the justice of the act itself. Punishment may not make the world a better place--it
may make the criminal’s life worse (because he has to suffer the punishment) and it may make
our lives worse (because we have to pay for the criminal to be punished)--but it is the right thing
to do anyway. On the deontological account of punishment, punishment is all about justice; it
doesn’t matter whether it makes the world better or not.
Case Study1: Ronnie Biggs
Consider first the case of Ronnie Biggs. Biggs was part of a gang that in 1963 pulled off the "Great
Train Robbery". The group got away with £1.6m (the equivalent of about £28m today). In 1965 he
escaped from prison and fled to Spain; he later went to Brazil, which has no extradition treaty with
Britain. Last year he returned to the country voluntarily, a sick man who wanted to die in the
country in which he was born. He was immediately arrested, and returned to prison to serve the
remainder of his sentence.
Biggs’ imprisonment doesn’t seem to make the world a better place in any significant way. Biggs
himself is worse off because of the punishment; without it he would be a free man. The punishment
also has a negative effect on us; it costs us money to keep Biggs in prison.
Further, the punishment doesn’t really seem to serve any great purpose: There is no longer any
need to protect ourselves from Biggs; he’s is no fit state to go around robbing trains. Neither is
there any real hope of rehabilitating Biggs to make him a useful member of society; he’s not in a
position to contribute much due to his illness, and has probably mellowed about as much as he’s
going to. Punishing him may have some mild deterrent effect, but knowing that aged criminals
returning to the country forty years after committing their crimes are treated with leniancy probably
won’t change the minds of many that have decided not to commit crimes for fear of punishment.
Should Biggs have been arrested and returned to prison? If you think that he should, even though
it serves no obvious purpose, then you must do so on deontological grounds.
Case Study 2: Terror Cases
Home sectretary Charles Clarke has recently got into trouble. He’s been locking up people who
haven’t done anything wrong (at least yet), various Muslim clerics, because he thinks that it serves
the greater good.
Presumably Clarke’s argument goes something like this: these people, left free, pose a threat to
society; we need to be protected from them. We also need to take a stand against terrorism,
showing that we’re on top of the problem, deterring potential terrorists. There’s also a chance that
we can discourage these dangerous men from becoming criminals, to some extent rehabilitating
them.

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Suppose that this is Clarke’s argument. If it is, then it is a consequentialist argument. All of the
purposes of punishment (assuming a consequentialist account) are met by imprisoning people such
as these are claimed to be, even if they have done nothing wrong.
Is it right to imprison such people as these are claimed to be? If you think that it is, then you must
do so on consequentialist grounds.

CASE 2: Threaten to Kill

A man threatens another with death after being shortchanged. The complaint is filed to the police
and both are summoned to record a statement. They both confirm the threat to the officer in charge.
What action should be taken????

SUPPORT FOR APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR AND PROFESSIONAL CODES

Introduction
This topic draws together many of the themes discussed so far and looks at potential responses that might be made to a
variety of different situations. Beginning with an examination of formal and informal support for appropriate conduct,
it then considers responses to issues of concern to senior managers, such as the development of an ethical computing
policy. It also considers the personal role of a computer-using individual.

FORMAL SUPPORT
It is important to appreciate that a number of external agencies may also offer support and guidance. The use of
computers should not be approached in isolation and therefore needs to be considered in relation to other areas of
business ethics. For example, a company that appreciates the implications of business computer use is also likely to
appreciate the importance of other business behavior; the opposite may also be true.

Where might an appreciation of the ethical implications of business activities actually originate?
It is obviously not appropriate or even possible for every company to be continually forced to “re-invent the wheel” of
appropriate conduct. Although local problems may at first appear to be totally individual, it is probable that at least
some other company(s) has previously experienced similar difficulties, and if so their accumulated knowledge is likely
to be both helpful and relevant.
As well as much else, the collective experience of other companies is available to the corporate members of
“professional” business organizations. Such organizations developed in responses to a common need, normally offer
appropriate information and support to business as their primary aim. It is from these professional business
organizations that concerned managers can learn of the broader ethical risks of modern business and discover potential
solutions.

PROFESSIONAL CODES
The term ‘professional’ is today used fairly freely within business; for our purposes, it can essentially be held to refer to
a group of individuals who work in a similar area, who have undertaken specialist training and who share a common
goal of maintaining high standards.
One of the definitions of a ‘profession’ is that it defines appropriate standards of behavior for those working in its
specified field.
Normally, to ensure that these standards are maintained, professional organizations will provide for regulations of their
members. Professional codes of conduct are the formal expression of expectations and requirement. All professional
organizations tend to develop such codes and adherence to them is generally an important condition of membership.

There are several important reasons why professional codes of conduct exist including:-
 To allow those inside and outside a profession - including members of the general public – to evaluate exactly
what may be appropriately expected from members of that profession.
 To provide clear and public definitions of what is – and what is not – viewed as acceptable professional
behavior.

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  To allow the profession as a whole to support an individual who is maintaining an agreed viewpoint.

The written expression of an ‘official’ view of professional behavior has several very real advantages:-
 Setting out detailed written code makes it much easier for an individual who is new to the field to understand
and appreciate the full range of circumstances that can potentially be met in the future professional life and
thus to gain an appreciation of what may actually be involved in their work.
 Knowing what experienced specialists consider relevant allows appropriate planning on personal and
professional levels. Such planning is not simply concerned with uncommon problems. Some difficult
situations in business may be extremely familiar but this need not mean that they are consequently
unimportant.

In summary, a competitive range of events and activities, well beyond the scope of a very well-informed individual
practitioner, may need to be anticipated for even an expert to feel professionally secure. The pressures of modern
business and barrage of day-to-day demands, mean that it is all too easy to lose sight of the wider perspectives of
professional work and the potential longer-term effects of behavior.
Also the nature of business specialization is inherently likely to obscure the more extended implications of professional
actions.
In the UK, the professional body is the British Computer Society (BCS) while in and beyond the USA, the Association
of Computer Machinery (ACM) is regarded as the principal professional organization for those who work with
computers.
Many other concerned organizations also exist; two of the largest are, in the UK, the Institute of Electrical Engineers
(IEE) and in the USA, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). All these organizations are well
aware of the need to develop and use computer systems responsibly and all have worked hard to produce codes of
conduct to determine exactly what the ‘appropriate use’ of computer systems mans in practice.
On a much wider scale, the generation of industry – wide codes of conduct allow the greater weight of collective views
to be felt. Publication by professional bodies means that the general public maybe reassured that those working within a
field are also concerned with standards.
Closer to home, individual commercial decisions by clients and customers can undoubtedly be enhanced by confidence
engendered through adherence to a well – publicized professional code.
Codes of conduct developed by professional organizations may not refer just to the behavior of the members. While a
code of conduct may have been drawn up by a particular specialized professional body, this does not automatically
mean that the contents of the code are consequently of relevance only to members of that particular association.
The conclusions of a relevant professional body are of concern to everyone working within that area. Whether an
individual working in a particular field is a member of several relevant organizations, or one, or none, they need to be
aware of what the relevant professional organizations consider appropriate and inappropriate. Such individuals also
have a legitimate interest in knowing about attempts to codify behavior in their particular business area.

While members of a particular professional organization may follow the official code because it is required of
them, what concerns individuals who are not members of a professional body?
They may well decide that it is appropriate to incorporate all or part of an ‘official’ code into their personal ethical
beliefs and to use this specialized information to maintain appropriate standards in their work. Those professionals who
are exercising their skills appropriately have a responsibility to cascade down information on what constitutes good
practice. Others in the organization may use computers but not be aware of good practice, may be of considerable
benefit to a company.
Quite apart from those specialized codes developed by organizations particularly with computer use and with the
professional use of computer systems, as business professionals we also need to be aware of additional resources that
are open to us. These come from codes and guidelines developed by those specialist organizations who are generally
concerned with ethical practice.
One such specialist organization is the European Business Ethics Network, established in 1987 and supported by many
of Europe’s leading companies. A not – for – profit association of increasing influence, it has branches throughout
Europe and in the UK.

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