3.10 Ethical and Social Implications of Computing Systems

Programs affect real people

As you design classes and methods, consider ethical and social implications: who uses this program, and how could it cause harm? Poorly designed or buggy code can lead to privacy violations, security vulnerabilities, financial loss, or discrimination. Responsible programmers anticipate misuse and test carefully before release.

Privacy and security matter

Programs often collect or store personal data (names, passwords, locations). Data privacy means limiting access to sensitive information and only collecting what's needed. Security flaws in code — like unvalidated input — can be exploited, so defensive programming (checking preconditions, handling exceptions) reduces risk to users.

Bias, authorship, and legality

Algorithms can unintentionally encode bias if trained or designed using unrepresentative data or assumptions, leading to unfair outcomes. Using others' code without permission may violate intellectual property/copyright law; licenses specify legal reuse. Citing sources and crediting original authors is both ethical and often legally required.

Key terms

Data privacy

Protecting personal information by limiting what is collected, stored, and shared.

Security vulnerability

A weakness in code (e.g., unvalidated input) that can be exploited to cause harm.

Algorithmic bias

Unfair outcomes produced by a program due to skewed data or flawed design assumptions.

Intellectual property/copyright

Legal protection preventing unauthorized use or copying of someone else's code or work.

Defensive programming

Writing code that anticipates and handles errors, invalid input, or misuse to reduce risk.

Try an AP-style question

A hiring algorithm trained on past hiring data favors one group. What is this called?

1. Encryption
2. Algorithmic bias
3. A syntax error
4. Data compression