CST Ethics Exercise

                                          

CST Ethics Exercise

Engineering Ethics Toolkit: Case studies - Engineering Professors Council (epc.ac.uk)

Case study: Smart homes for older people with disabilities - Engineering Professors Council (epc.ac.uk)

Case study: Smart homes for older people with disabilities

Smart homes, heralded as the pathway to independent living, hold the promise of enhancing the autonomy and safety of elderly individuals and those with disabilities. Integrating the Internet of Things (IoT) with sophisticated sensors, chatbots, and digital assistants, these homes establish connectivity, linking residents not only with family but also with health and local services, ensuring swift responses to any emerging issues.

In the community of Ferndale, a cluster of smart homes has been meticulously developed, serving as a costly pilot project. This initiative aims to showcase the potential for improved and more cost-effective care for individuals aged 70 and above, most of whom live independently. Some residents receive support through reminders for medication, prompts for health and fitness routines, assistance with online shopping, and detection of falls within their homes. The ongoing evaluation of habits, diet, and routines enables the technology to construct models that could predict future adverse health outcomes, such as the early detection of dementia or issues related to dietary deficiencies. It's important to note that the efficacy of numerous smart home features relies on a stable and secure internet connection.

Group of 3

(Bartosz Sikora , Mantas Mailiunas, Jubair Yahya )

Activity

Part One

You are the software engineer responsible for the integrity of Ferndale’s system. During a routine inspection you discover several indicators suggesting a data breach may have occurred via some of the smart appliances, many of which have cameras and are voice-activated. Through the IoT, these appliances are also connected to Amazon Ring home security products – these ultimately link to Amazon, including supplying financial information and details about purchases.

Answered by BARTOSZ SIKORA

1. Activity: Technical analysis – Before the ethical questions can be considered, the students might consider a number of immediate technical questions that will help inform the discussion on ethical issues. A sample data set or similar technical problem could be used for this analysis. For example:

• Is it possible to ascertain whether a breach has actually happened and data has been accessed?

·       You are able to see who and when the data has been accessed via the data logs. The network traffic can help determine whether unauthorized access has occurred.  

• What data may have been compromised?

·       Any sensitive information could have been compromised e.g. Personal Information, recorded videos, bank details.  

• Is a breach of this kind preventable, and could it be better prevented in the future?

                    You can strengthen security measures to help prevent data breaches. Examples could                     include updating regular software updates, two factor authentication. Most importantly to                     prevent security breaches you must educate the users on how to prevent their data from                    being accessed due to their data not being secure.

Answered by Mantas Masiliunas

2. Activity: Identify legal and ethical issues. The students should reflect on what might be the immediate ethical concerns of this situation. This could be done in small groups or a larger classroom discussion.

Possible prompts:

• Is there a risk that the breach comprised the residents’ personal details, financial information or even allowed remote and secret control of cameras? What else could have been compromised and what are the risks of these compromises? Are certain types of data more risky when breached than others? Why?
• What are the legal implications if there has been a breach? Do you, as a software engineer, have any duty to the residents at this point?
• At the stage where the breach and its potential implications are unknown, should you tell the community and, if so, what should you say? Some residents aren’t always able to understand the technology or how it works, so they may be unlikely to recognise the implications of situations like this. Should you worry that it might cause them distress or create distrust in the integrity of the whole system if the possible data breach is revealed?
• At the stage where the breach and its potential implications are unknown, is there anyone else you should inform? What should you tell them? Are there any risks you may be able to mitigate immediately? How?
• Who owns the data collected on a person living in a smart home? What should happen to it after that person dies?

Is there a risk that a breach comprised the residents personal details: Yes, details such as health information and bank details could have been breached since the inspection indicated that smart appliances were affected. These are connected to the network and the internet and so this information could have been comprised. Financial information is defiantly more risky since this information can be used a variety of ways such as fraud and stolen identity. Also, the health information could be used to apply for applications related to this information, so this information is important to be kept safe and updated, including changes after a data breach. This breach could also breach the GDPR regulation and so the company responsible for this breach are liable for a fine and possible jail time. You should defiantly tell the community if their information is breached in a way which they understand since older people find it harder to understand how technology works. This will let them know of their rights and courses of action they should take going forward. This will defiantly cause distrust in the integrity of the system as these types of breaches negatively affect people and so they would rather not risk using the system again if it has a chance to get breached again. But overall, it is not certain that the system was completely comprised and so this information could have been kept safe from any hackers, nevertheless, this will still cause distrust. A way of telling the person what happened and the issue is through family members, preferably those who have a good understanding of technology. In addition, these family members can sort out their finances and the problems that were caused by the potential breach. At the stages of a beach, you should also inform the agency that deals with data breaches, which would be the ICO and the government. This could help the affected party mitigate the risks of this data breach as their investigation could lead to action against anyone who misused the personal information. The people would also need to call their banks to report potential fraud that could happen from this data breach. The organization that owns the data collected by the smart appliances in the smart house is between the community (Ferndale ) and the companies of the IOT devices which could be Amazon and Google. If the person dies, this information should be deleted off the servers, but this could be hard because you would need to ask for these companies to delete this information.

Answered By Myself ( Jubair Yahya )

3. Activity: Determine the wider ethical context. Students should consider what wider moral issues are raised by this situation. This could be done in small groups or a larger classroom discussion.

Possible prompts:

• When engineered products or systems go wrong, what is our responsibility to tell the people affected?
• 
  
•    It is engineers' responsibility to focus on safety for legal issues and communicate properly. Clear information should be provided to affected individuals. We should give a guarantee for commitment to avoid any future issues 

• What is our right to privacy? Can, or should, it be traded away or sacrificed for another good? Who gets to decide?

                  Privacy is everyone's rights and protecting information. We can say they easily share                 the customer data to other companies for online advertisement. But we need to strike                a balance between both interests

• Are smart homes a good thing if their technology is always going to present privacy risks? Should the technology be limited in some way?

o   Smart homes are useful, but technology may pose risks to privacy. It is important to regulate technology to protect personal privacy without compromising security and privacy. 

• The homes in this case are inhabited by senior citizens with disabilities. Do we owe a different level of care to these people than others? Why? Should engineers working on software for these homes employ a duty of care in a different way than they would in software for homes for young able-bodied professionals? Why? Should a duty of care be delivered by people who have the capacity to care in the emotional sense?

                     engineers have a moral responsibility to make a product which is to care for elderly                 people. And focus on security and easy accessibility. Extra care for seniors so they                    can easily adopt the software. Emotional care is essential. 

• Should individuals have the ability to determine their own level of risk and choose what functionality to accept based on this risk? Should technology enable these kinds of choices?

                o   Personal risk is there so I would say technology enables the risk  

 

• Should engineers be held responsible for unsafe systems? If not, who is responsible?

                    o   Engineers share responsibility and it should be a team effort. 

o   Accountability should be crucial and clear