Chapter 10 — Engineering ethics and safety

Lesson map

Lesson 10 published. Map, example, EX028.

flowchart TD
  N0["Learning outcomes"]
  N1["10.1 Professional duties"]
  N2["10.2 Authorisation"]
  N3["10.3 Data care"]
  N4["10.4 Change safety"]
  N5["Professional codes"]
  N6["Safety of critical services"]
  N7["Synthesis"]
  N0 --> N1 --> N2 --> N3 --> N4 --> N5 --> N6 --> N7
  N7 --> EX["Worked example"]
  EX --> Q["Exercise EX028"]

Logical drawing

flowchart LR
  N0["Learning outcomes"]
  N1["10.1 Professional duties"]
  N2["10.2 Authorisation"]
  N3["10.3 Data care"]
  N4["10.4 Change safety"]
  N5["Professional codes"]
  N6["Safety of critical services"]
  N7["Synthesis"]
  N0 --> N1 --> N2 --> N3 --> N4 --> N5 --> N6 --> N7 --> Q["EX028"]

[Learning outcomes]
    |
    v
[10.1 Professional duties]
    |
    v
[10.2 Authorisation]
    |
    v
[10.3 Data care]
    |
    v
[10.4 Change safety]
    |
    v
[Professional codes]
    |
    v
[Safety of critical services]
    |
    v
[Synthesis]
    |
    v
[Worked example] --> [Exercise EX028]

Learning outcomes

You will (1) apply professional ethics; (2) work within authorisation; (3) consider safety of public services.

10.1 Professional duties

Engineers hold public safety and trust. Council networks support services such as social care and emergency planning; outages can harm residents.

Engineers working on public infrastructure owe duties to the people who rely on it, not only to whoever pays. That means telling the client honestly about risks, staying within competence, declaring conflicts of interest, and refusing to sign off work that is unsafe. Professional bodies publish codes of conduct that set out these duties, and students should read the one that applies to them.

10.2 Authorisation

Kofi's project agreement lists what he may do: review configurations and logs, design, and test in a lab. He does not scan or probe council networks; tests on production happen only with council staff, in approved windows.

Security work on any network needs written permission from someone entitled to give it, stating scope, timing and methods. Without it, even well-meant checks can be illegal and can disrupt services. Kofi keeps signed authorisation from the council for each activity, works only on in-scope systems, and stops and asks if he finds he needs to go beyond the agreed boundary.

10.3 Data care

Logs contain staff and resident information. Kofi works with pseudonymised exports and synthetic data.

Network data such as logs and captures can contain personal information: addresses linked to people, browsing records, or message contents. Engineers collect only what the purpose needs, store it securely, limit who can access it, and delete it when the retention period ends. For teaching and testing, synthetic data avoids these risks entirely and should be the default.

Access to real data should itself be logged and periodically reviewed.

10.4 Change safety

Network changes can cut services. Every change has a rollback plan and is scheduled with service owners.

Every change to a live network carries a risk of disruption. Safe practice is to plan the change, have it reviewed, schedule it for a low-impact time, prepare a tested rollback, and verify afterwards that services still work. Recording each step creates a trail that helps later investigation if something does go wrong, and builds trust with the organisation.

Changes that fail are reviewed without blame to improve the process.

Professional codes

Professional bodies publish codes of conduct that set expectations for engineers: act in the public interest, work within competence, be honest about results and respect confidentiality. Kofi reads his institution's code and the ACM Code of Ethics and notes how each applies to his project. Working within competence, for example, means he asks the council's specialists before advising on telephony quality, an area he has not studied. Being honest about results means reporting limitations in his measurements even when they weaken his recommendations.

Safety of critical services

Some council systems support urgent work: the out-of-hours social care line, emergency planning and CCTV used by public safety teams. A network change that breaks these is a safety issue, not just an inconvenience. Kofi identifies these services with the council and marks them in his design. Changes affecting them are scheduled in agreed windows, tested in the lab first, and have a named owner available during the change. Failure modes are considered too: if a firewall fails, these services must fail over rather than stop.

Worked example

Kofi declines a request from a staff member to test whether guest Wi-Fi can reach servers by trying it himself, and instead asks the network team to check firewall configuration.

Synthetic case. The scenario is synthetic.

Errors and limits

Good intentions do not replace authorisation.

Exercises

• EX028 — Probing request. How should Kofi handle a request to probe the network himself?
  Show marking criteria

  Rubric: 3 = decline, route to authorised team;; 2 = decline;; 1 = accept;; 0 = none.
• EX029 — Rollback. Why must every change have rollback?
  Show marking criteria

  Rubric: 3 = restore service quickly;; 2 = safety;; 1 = vague;; 0 = none.
• EX030 — Public harm. Give one way a council network outage could harm residents.
  Show marking criteria

  Rubric: 3 = service example;; 2 = vague;; 1 = minimal attempt;; 0 = none.

Synthesis

Ethical engineering protects residents, staff and trust.

Continue studying — chapter 10 of 50

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