I never thought much about ethics in the scope of programming and coding. There was not much of a right or wrong that I placed in how coding could affect the world. Albeit, the programs which I have made so far never had to be questioned of its ethicality, whether it is morally good or bad; I mean what could be so harmful about how to convert Fahrenheit to Celcisus and vice versa? Or recreating a game that barely works. However, I realize now that there is so much ethics involved in the scope of software engineering. I suppose it may be as I never had malicious intentions with my programming path, I just want to create games or fun programs, not steal information from people. The fact that people could have malicious intentions and can utilize software engineering as a means to do harm completely slipped my mind, or it may not even be malicious, it could be just a means to have an advantage in some ways. There is obvious vulnerability in security person privacy in the modern day with the growing advancement in the tech industry, which is why ethics is such an important topic to be acknowledged and discussed.
I spend a lot of time fumbling around with Google Street View, whether it was for a class or just for fun. I never thought much about it, I mean there is not much harm in looking at streets is there? It is in fact all public, there no invasion of privacy right? Looking at the street on StreetView is just like me standing at the street but rather than physically being there, I am virtually experiencing it. There really is no harm! However there are not only underlining but also overlining matters in this. To begin with, the StreetView captured people without their consent, be it as leaving a store, in compromising attires, or just blatant nonconsensual photographs being recorded of someone. It was also revealed in 2010 as a scandal for Google StreetView, 3 years after its launch, that the softwares used for the StreetView data had also only only collected but also had stored personal information of the bypassing residents. The violation of privacy is absolutely abhorring, it would not sit right with me, knowing that there are people out there who have knowledge of my private information. I mean its called “private” because it is not meant for others to know.
This case study made me think more about the ethics and morals, not only in just the scope of software engineering or computer science, but as society as a whole. I suppose to begin with, having morals is crucial in order to build the foundations of ethics (in my opinion); that is to say, if you, yourself, do not have the moral compass to know and differientiate the right and the wrong and define your own principles to live by, how will you be able to recognize when to abide or stand against the ethical codes that society systematically provides its people. As the case study of Google and its scandal with the StreetView, there was a point in which Google had used one of its employee as a scapegoat, only to be revealed that the employee had communicated with their superior. This goes to show both the morality of the employee and the ethically of Google, as a company. By the means of achieve their goal through shady intentions, the invasion of privacy shows the ethicality of their actions with clarity. There is no reason why someone, or anyone’s privacy should be violated for your own gains. This case study of Google StreetView sets a great example for the ethics of software engineering and privacy.