Where is the limit of your ethics? Where would you draw the line?
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Posted on Nov 8
Where is the limit of your ethics? Where would you draw the line?
I'm guessing that many of you have strong ethics right? I know I have them, and for me it's always hard to know when to draw the line when a client requests certain things.
What about you?
- 1. Where would/do YOU draw the line?
- 2. Is there anything that would make, or has made, YOU say "NO, I won't do that"?
I'm really curious to know, please feel free to discuss it in the comments!
Discussion (2)
Interesting question. For me, personally, it's the legal limit.
Disclaimer: This is not legal advice. I'm not a lawyer. I could be wrong about everything I'm writing here.
Where I live, I'm not obligated to do what my employer asks me to do if it's illegal.
Further, if a programmer does something illegal, they can be personally prosecuted. Remember the case with Volkswagen and their engineers? 3 years in prison and a 200k fine.
From that article "Software engineers across the country will have to reflect on the fact that they may be held personally responsible for creating something that knowingly breaks the law".
Things that are probably illegal at the moment are:
- not making accessible software (complying with the WCAG 2.0 guidelines in the UK)
- GDPR (proper consent on forms and usage customer data)
Other things that I'm certain someone could be sued for are things like:
- making insecure software
- making buggy software
If I was self-employed and someone hired me to make software and I made them something buggy, I could potentially be sued.
I'm not a lawyer, but why wouldn't it be the same under full-time employment? I don't want to take the chance.
So, if my employer asks me to do something immoral, or potentially illegal, I would only proceed if I've got a paper trail of communication where I've clearly outlined my concerns, and my employer still told me to go ahead and do it.
For example, they might say that they don't want me to write tests because they want the feature out faster. I would clearly have it in writing that "If we don't write tests there is the risks of X types of bugs later down the line. Are you still happy for me to proceed?". If I get a written reply that they're happy, then I'll proceed. At that point, it's not my legal problem from what I understand.
Same thing with legal things, to an extent. Employer might say "make this form, but make the checkbox pre-ticked". I would reply "from what I understand, it's illegal to have this checkbox pre-ticked, but I'm not a lawyer so I could be wrong. Can we please confirm with the legal team before I proceed?"
If something is blatantly illegal, or absolutely immoral, then I wouldn't do it. I would either quit or tell them I'm not doing it and let them fire me.
However, I can't think of many work scenarios where something immoral is legal.
Interesting answer too.
Yeah, I agree, though sometimes the line between legal and illegal is quite blurry.
I was not aware you could get sued for making buggy code, or for not making accessible software, but it kinda makes sense in some way. Though it could be debatable if the devs should be responsible or the company.
Luckily I have not been requested to do anything illegal yet, but I have been requested to do some immoral/unethical things, which I've discussed with the pertinent people. If I can't convince them I will do it, but at least I have a confirmation and a written record as you pointed out. Which makes me sleep a lot better at night.
"make this form, but make the checkbox pre-ticked"
Funny enough I had to do this a while back, and I had to make sure it was legal and confirm that I should do it. I still don't think that was legal, but they supposedly asked the layers and it was OK. Who knows... I might get sued at some point for that lol
Thanks for the answer, It's really interesting.
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