Professor Rogerson, who is Europe's first professor of computer
ethics, will deliver a keynote speech at the Hong Kong Institution
of Engineers' first Annual Conference on IT Professional Practice,
on 4th May.
His speech will discuss how current methods of developing and
delivering ICT products and services can be improved through the
use of ethical theory.
Drawing upon the work of other eminent computer ethics experts,
Professor Rogerson will suggest that too much is left to chance in
the development of ICT and that "the explicit use of ethics can
increase the probability of acceptable systems being delivered by
design rather than by luck."
Professor Rogerson said: "The development and application of
Information and Communication Technologies have been and continue
to be associated with failure, poor quality, over spends and so
on."
He added: "Whilst regulation and the law might act as a
safeguard, it is people's willingness and desire to use IT
sensitively that really matters."
Few organisations adequately take these considerations into
account – "consequently it is simply by chance that implemented
systems turn out to be ethical and socially acceptable or not," he
said.
He concludes: "The time has now come for those responsible for
IT development and application to give equal regard to the ethical
and societal issues of their work as they do to the technological
and economic ones."
