IT and the engineering warrant

It seems that the information technology profession or, at least, some of it, is being regulated under the Engineering Profession Act. At a ceremony in April 2004, Minister Ninu Zammit, Minister for Resources and Infrastructure, granted an information technology engineering warrant together with the traditional electrical and mechanical engineering warrants.

This "new" field of professional engineering in Malta has been created with minimal or no discussion with other practitioners of and stakeholders in information technology. It has also apparently been achieved without the necessary amendments to the legislative framework for professional engineering, thereby creating doubts about the role of the information technology engineer and the protection afforded to those who hire the services of such a warrant holder.

There are many reasons why some professions are regulated at law. These reasons are far too many to be reasonably covered in a newspaper article. However, so far, no reasons have been given publicly for information technology engineering to be a regulated field of engineering and there are no descriptions of the areas of competence of an information technology engineer.

A warranted professional has a privileged role in society. Doctors, auditors, engineers, priests, lawyers, architects, and teachers - the "traditional" professions - are all able to do, as part of their job, things that would be illegal for a member of the public to perform.

For instance, a doctor can prescribe controlled drugs and issue death certificates. An auditor can prepare corporate accounts for submission to the financial authorities. A priest can take confession and can refuse to give evidence against a defendant in a court of law. It is illegal for unwarranted individuals to perform these activities. Illegal practice can result in fines or jail sentences.

But with privileges come responsibilities. These responsibilities include abiding by certain ethical values. The earliest professions, such as the medical profession, stood out from other "jobs" because practitioners agreed to a code of ethics: a value system by which a practitioner's professionalism could be judged.

Such values include acting in the public interest; putting the health and safety of the public and the environment first, even if it means disclosing unethical practices among members; using the best possible standards; maintaining integrity, independence, and not accepting bribes; avoiding harm to others and improving public understanding of the profession and its consequences. These are all honourable values that are presumably upheld by all people, and not merely professionals. The difference is that professionals usually belong to a professional organisation and, if they fail to abide by the organisation's code of ethics, the professionals' membership of the organisation may be withdrawn.

In addition, warranted professionals are authorised by the state or the government to practise the profession. This ensures that those who use the services of the professional can trust him or her, because legislation exists to fine or imprison impostors and fraudsters and to remove the right to practise the profession from those who breach the code of ethics.

On the face of it the information technology engineer is granted a warrant under the Engineering Profession Act. This is an assumption on my part based on the fact that the Minister for Resources and Infrastructure awarded the warrant to at least one individual at a ceremony at which electrical and mechanical engineering warrants were also awarded. The Engineering Profession Act explicitly states that, although the minister may extend the applicability of the Act to other fields of engineering, it currently applies only to electrical and mechanical engineering.

There seems to be no legal notice and no other instrument through which the minister might have extended the engineering profession to include information technology engineering. Furthermore, the Engineering Board, which regulates the profession, has not replied to a letter in which I requested information relating to this process of extension.

This means that, currently, it is not known how somebody can become warranted as an information technology engineer. It is not known what knowledge such an individual has to have.

We do not even know what information technology engineers are able to do as part of their job that would be unsafe or illegal for a member of the public to do.

How has this state of affairs come about? Well, one reason is that the apparent creation of this new field of professional engineering has happened without the involvement of and contribution from all the interested parties and stakeholders in the information technology sector. It cannot be good for the country or for the information technology industry for one professional group to decide, without discussion, to simply annex another discipline.

The Engineering Board and the Chamber of Engineers should inform the public about how and why they see information technology as "belonging" to traditional engineering, as opposed to seeing information technology as a separate discipline that utilises or incorporates some aspects of traditional engineering.What are the benefits to the public? What measures are being taken to educate the public about the consequences of this decision? Is it safe to regulate the information technology profession from under the umbrella of traditional engineering? What, exactly, is it that an information technology engineer can do that is unsafe or illegal for an unwarranted person to do?

What care do the Engineering Board and Chamber of Engineers take to ensure that a university graduate has the body of knowledge required to become a warranted information technology engineer? What side effects does the apparent creation of an information technology engineering warrant have on the rest of the information technology industry?

Failure to adequately involve stakeholders and educate the public may result in the public being misled about what the information technology engineer can do and do safely. A warranted professional and a professional organisation should take all steps necessary to avoid misleading the public.

Dr Staff joined the Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Science, at the University of Malta in 1993. He lectures in social and professional issues in computing in the university's BSc (Hons) Information Technology degree programme.