Ethical and Legal Aspects of Computing: A Professional Perspective from Software Engineering

This textbook presents an overview of the critically important ethical and legal issues that arise in the computing field and provides a professional perspective from software engineering. The author gained exposure to these aspects of computing while working as a software engineer at Motorola in Ireland, where he coordinated the patent programme and worked with several software suppliers.

Topics and features:

• Presents a broad overview of ethics and the law
• Includes key learning topics, summaries, and review questions in each chapter, together with a useful glossary
• Discusses the professional responsibility of computer professionals
• Explores ethics in various civilisations and religious traditions
• Discusses ethical software engineering and ethical outsourcing
• Considers what is fair and ethical in data science
• Describes ethical challenges that arise in social media and the AI field
• Reviews intellectual property including patents, copyright and trademarks

This practical and easy-to-follow textbook/reference is ideal for computer science students seeking to understand legal and ethical aspects of computing. The text also serves as a concise self-study primer for software engineers and software managers.