1. Approve software only if they have a well-founded belief that it is safe, meets specifications, passes appropriate tests, and does not diminish quality of life, diminish privacy or harm the environment.
2. Strive to fully understand the specifications for software on which they work.
3. Ensure that software engineers are informed of standards before being held to them.
4. Ensure that clients, employers, and supervisors know of the software engineer's commitment to this Code of ethics, and the subsequent ramifications of such commitment.
5. In particular, software engineers shall, as appropriate:Strive for high quality, acceptable cost and a reasonable schedule, ensuring significant tradeoffs are clear to and accepted by the employer and the client, and are available for consideration by the user and the public.
6. These Principles should influence software engineers to consider broadly who is affected by their work; to examine if they and their colleagues are treating other human beings with due respect; to consider how the public, if reasonably well informed, would view their decisions; to analyze how the least empowered will be affected by their decisions; and to consider whether their acts would be judged worthy of the ideal professional working as a software engineer.
7. Treat all forms of software maintenance with the same professionalism as new development.
8. Promote public knowledge of software engineering.
9. Software engineers are those who contribute by direct participation or by teaching, to the analysis, specification, design, development, certification, maintenance and testing of software systems.
10. To ensure, as much as possible, that their efforts will be used for good, software engineers must commit themselves to making software engineering a beneficial and respected profession.
1. Ensure realistic quantitative estimates of cost, scheduling, personnel, quality and outcomes on any project on which they work or propose to work, and provide an uncertainty assessment of these estimates.
2. Assist colleagues in being fully aware of current standard work practices including policies and procedures for protecting passwords, files and other confidential information, and security measures in general.
3. Work to follow professional standards, when available, that are most appropriate for the task at hand, departing from these only when ethically or technically justified.
4. Ensure proper and achievable goals and objectives for any project on which they work or propose.
5. These Principles should influence software engineers to consider broadly who is affected by their work; to examine if they and their colleagues are treating other human beings with due respect; to consider how the public, if reasonably well informed, would view their decisions; to analyze how the least empowered will be affected by their decisions; and to consider whether their acts would be judged worthy of the ideal professional working as a software engineer.
6. Obey all laws governing their work, unless, in exceptional circumstances, such compliance is inconsistent with the public interest.
7. Ensure that they are qualified for any project on which they work or propose to work by an appropriate combination of education and training, and experience.
8. The ultimate effect of the work should be to the public good.
9. Keep private any confidential information gained in their professional work, where such confidentiality is consistent with the public interest and consistent with the law.
10. Ensure that specifications for software on which they work have been well documented, satisfy the users’
1. In particular, software engineers shall, as appropriate:Encourage colleagues to adhere to this Code.
2. Principle 3: PRODUCTSoftware engineers shall ensure that their products and related modifications meet the highest professional standards possible.
3. Principle 6: PROFESSIONSoftware engineers shall advance the integrity and reputation of the profession consistent with the public interest.
4. Support, as members of a profession, other software engineers striving to follow this Code.
5. PRINCIPLESPrinciple 1: PUBLICSoftware engineers shall act consistently with the public interest.
6. Ensure that software engineers are informed of standards before being held to them.
7. In particular, software engineers shall, as appropriate:Strive for high quality, acceptable cost and a reasonable schedule, ensuring significant tradeoffs are clear to and accepted by the employer and the client, and are available for consideration by the user and the public.
8. Principle 4: JUDGMENTSoftware engineers shall maintain integrity and independence in their professional judgment.
9. To ensure, as much as possible, that their efforts will be used for good, software engineers must commit themselves to making software engineering a beneficial and respected profession.
10. In particular, software engineers shall, as appropriate:Temper all technical judgments by the need to support and maintain human values.
1. In all these judgments concern for the health, safety and welfare of the public is primary; that is, the "Public Interest" is central to this Code.
2. In accordance with that commitment, software engineers shall adhere to the following Code of Ethics and Professional Practice.
3. As this Code expresses the consensus of the profession on ethical issues, it is a means to educate both the public and aspiring professionals about the ethical obligations of all software engineers.
4. Recognize that violations of this Code are inconsistent with being a professional software engineer.
5. Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice (Full Version)PREAMBLEComputers have a central and growing role in commerce, industry, government, medicine, education, entertainment and society at large.
6. The Code provides an ethical foundation to which individuals within teams and the team as a whole can appeal.
7. These situations require the software engineer to use ethical judgment to act in a manner which is most consistent with the spirit of the Code of Ethics and Professional Practice, given the circumstances.
8. The Code is not simply for adjudicating the nature of questionable acts; it also has an important educational function.
9. The Code prescribes these as obligations of anyone claiming to be or aspiring to be a software engineer.
10. The Code contains eight Principles related to the behavior of and decisions made by professional software engineers, including practitioners, educators, managers, supervisors and policy makers, as well as trainees and students of the profession.
1. Principle 5: MANAGEMENTSoftware engineering managers and leaders shall subscribe to and promote an ethical approach to the management of software development and maintenance .
2. The Code helps to define those actions that are ethically improper to request of a software engineer or teams of software engineers.
3. The Code is not a simple ethical algorithm that generates ethical decisions.
4. Work to follow professional standards, when available, that are most appropriate for the task at hand, departing from these only when ethically or technically justified.
5. As this Code expresses the consensus of the profession on ethical issues, it is a means to educate both the public and aspiring professionals about the ethical obligations of all software engineers.
6. Not punish anyone for expressing ethical concerns about a project.
7. In particular, software engineers shall, as appropriate:Help develop an organizational environment favorable to acting ethically.
8. However, even in this generality, the Code provides support for software engineers and managers of software engineers who need to take positive action in a specific case by documenting the ethical stance of the profession.
9. The Principles identify the ethically responsible relationships in which individuals, groups, and organizations participate and the primary obligations within these relationships.
10. Promote no interest adverse to their employer or client, unless a higher ethical concern is being compromised; in that case, inform the employer or another appropriate authority of the ethical concern.