Ethics will normally be enforced by peer group pressure. The condemnation of ones friends and colleagues can be a greater force than any legal sanction. The ACS has not been active enough in aiding peer group pressure, by suspending or expelling members for ethical lapses. This would assist the practitioner in explaining the practical benefits of ethical behaviour to the clients and employers. An organisation whose IT professionals have been suspended for professional misconduct is likely to suffer financially.
People are less likely to do business with such an organisation.
This can be a powerful argument for ethical behaviour. Like computer documentation, to be effective our code of ethics must change with time and with feedback from its users. It would present ethical problems to work with. The ACS is a member of the International Federation for Information Processing. IFIP has been working on an international code of ethics for some time.