Abstract

The public interest should be a central ethical concern of members of the computer profession, and this would also result in the social status and power of software engineers being augmented. One attractive means to encourage and enforce ethical standards on the part of engineers and employers would be a system of licensing by internationally recognised professional bodies whose legitimacy stems from their capacity to act in the public interest. The author is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science, School of Applied Sciences, Anglia Polytechnic University, East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT, England; email [email protected] or [email protected].