The digital computer is a key technology of the modern era and has been central and essential to key operations in modern industrial society, including manufacturing, transport and distribution, government, the military, health services, education and research. And their impact will most likely increased over the next century.

We have also discovered that we are vulnerable to their malfunction and misuse, creating problems such as computer crime, software theft, hacking, viruses, invasions of privacy, an over- reliance on intelligent machines and workplace stress, each of which has created one or more ethical dilemmas for the computer profession.