Chapter 10 — Engineering ethics and safety
Lesson map
Lesson 10 published. Map, example, EX028.
flowchart TD
N0["Learning outcomes"]
N1["10.1 Duties of an engineer"]
N2["10.2 Beyond compliance"]
N3["10.3 Safety of patients"]
N4["10.4 Escalation"]
N5["Synthesis"]
N0 --> N1 --> N2 --> N3 --> N4 --> N5
N5 --> EX["Worked example"]
EX --> Q["Exercise EX028"]
Logical drawing
flowchart LR
N0["Learning outcomes"]
N1["10.1 Duties of an engineer"]
N2["10.2 Beyond compliance"]
N3["10.3 Safety of patients"]
N4["10.4 Escalation"]
N5["Synthesis"]
N0 --> N1 --> N2 --> N3 --> N4 --> N5 --> Q["EX028"]
[Learning outcomes]
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v
[10.1 Duties of an engineer]
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v
[10.2 Beyond compliance]
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v
[10.3 Safety of patients]
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v
[10.4 Escalation]
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v
[Synthesis]
|
v
[Worked example] --> [Exercise EX028]
Learning outcomes
You will (1) apply engineering ethics to privacy decisions; (2) recognise harms beyond legal compliance; (3) decide when to escalate concerns.
10.1 Duties of an engineer
Engineering ethics asks professionals to hold public safety and welfare paramount. Zara applies this to Pellmore. Health data exposure can cause discrimination, embarrassment, loss of employment and distress. Warren and Brandeis (1890) wrote of injury to feelings; Solove (2006) lists harms such as disclosure, exposure and increased accessibility. Zara writes that her duty is not only to satisfy the law but to prevent foreseeable harm to patients, even when no regulator would notice, because patients cannot see or control how the system is built.
10.2 Beyond compliance
Zara finds a case where law and ethics diverge. Pellmore's analytics team wants to infer pregnancy from appointment patterns to send targeted health tips. The processing might be framed lawfully with consent, but many patients would find it intrusive and some could be harmed if a family member saw the messages. Nissenbaum's contextual integrity helps her articulate the problem: information shared for care is flowing into marketing, a different context with different norms. She recommends against the feature and records her reasoning in the decision log.
10.3 Safety of patients
Telemedicine adds safety concerns. If a video consultation fails silently, a patient may miss urgent care. Zara learns that privacy measures must not create safety risks: an over-strict session timeout could cut off a consultation. She works with clinicians to set timeouts that protect unattended devices without ending active calls. The exercise teaches her that safety and privacy are both duties toward the same patients, and that engineers must balance them openly rather than maximising one quietly at the expense of the other.
10.4 Escalation
Zara asks what she should do if a manager ignores a serious privacy concern. Prof. Holm explains that she should first document the concern and raise it with her supervisor and the data protection officer, whose role under GDPR Articles 38 and 39 includes advising the organisation and monitoring compliance independently. If the concern remains unaddressed and patients are at risk, professional codes and whistleblowing protections may apply. Zara writes a personal escalation plan, hoping never to use it, but feeling more confident that she knows the route.
Worked example
Zara frames her duty around foreseeable harm, recommends against pregnancy inference using contextual integrity, balances timeouts with clinical safety and writes an escalation route through the data protection officer.
Synthetic case. The analytics proposal is synthetic; Warren and Brandeis (1890), Solove (2006), Nissenbaum (2004) and GDPR Articles 38–39 are real.
Errors and limits
Ethical judgement varies; recording reasoning lets others challenge it.
Exercises
- EX028 — Ethical duty. What duty goes beyond legal compliance for Zara? Rubric: 3 = preventing foreseeable harm to patients even when unnoticed;; 2 = mentions harm;; 1 = only the law;; 0 = none.
- EX029 — Pregnancy inference. Why does Zara advise against the pregnancy inference feature? Rubric: 3 = care information flows into marketing, breaking contextual norms and risking harm;; 2 = mentions intrusion;; 1 = supports it;; 0 = none.
- EX030 — DPO role. Why escalate to the data protection officer? Rubric: 3 = the DPO advises and monitors compliance independently under Articles 38–39;; 2 = mentions DPO;; 1 = goes to press first;; 0 = none.
Synthesis
Chapter 10 grounds the foundations in ethics. Chapter 11 begins the systems block with networks.
Continue studying — chapter 10 of 50
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