Adherence to the Highest Ethical Standards and Integrity
Understand the importance of maintaining the highest standards and being honest with your professional work.
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Given the scenario below, select the approach that you would choose from the options provided.
Scenario
You’re a software engineer working for an interactive advertising company that collaborates with different cosmetics enterprises to help them attain more consumers.
Your company is approached by a cosmetics company to create a quiz that would profile potential consumers for their product. The company wants to target teenage girls as their main consumers. They provide you the questions and answers that they want in the quiz as well. As you begin to work on the project, you realize that the company’s claims about the product seem unrealistic and exaggerated and are apparently without any scientific evidence too.
Their specific requirements seem a little odd to you but you follow their request by curating a website using visuals and designs that compel the teenage girls to take the quiz. Although the website should unbiasedly focus on providing general information about products to customers, it is now biased toward teenage girls and encouraging them to select the quiz that itself has been designed to promote a specific product.
You’ve done your part by following the requirement specifications of your client. How do you proceed with this project?
The scenario above teaches us that following instructions blindly can have serious consequences. It is our ethical responsibility on an individual level to investigate and take action if anything seems morally amiss. We should always adhere to the highest standards no matter what and should always be truthful and considerate of how our actions impact others.
Now, imagine another scenario:
As a software engineer at an automotive manufacturing company, you’re tasked with creating a program that can cheat emissions tests by reducing emissions only during testing.
The catch is that your software should detect if the vehicle is undergoing a test. If it is, then the engine should emit lower emissions.
You have qualms about working on this “solution,” but you are reassured by your managers that this is a necessary measure to keep up with the competition and meet the company’s financial goals. What could be the right step(s)? Select all that apply.
Research on your own.
Blow the whistle and report the relevant agencies of the potential harm.
Do as you are told.
Case study
In 2015, a case of corporate deception known as the Volkswagen scandal came into view.
Volkswagen emissions defeat device
The vehicles manufactured by Volkswagen produced high levels of harmful emissions, violating the environmental regulations. So, they installed a software program in their diesel ...