Re: Programmer responsibility

A bit late to this thread, and totally missed the thread prior to David's
post on 4/8, but I have personal experience with a company's president
convicted of fraud using an application I wrote.

I was one of two contractors that were brought in to design and develop a
brand-spanking new system. This company was in the business of re-billing
Medicaid. The way this business worked is that hospitals would submit their
bills and get reimbursed by Medicaid. Our client would go to these
hospitals and offer to re-bill and take a cut of any additional payments.
It's been about 15 years so the details are fuzzy, but essentially my
application allowed the user to set parameters on what would be re-billed
and how. It all smelled a bit fishy to me, but hey, this was a long-running
business with 20 or so employees, all with a lot of experience in the health
billing industry, so who was I to say?

So it was quite a eye-opener to be working one day, and a dozen agents from
the state attorney general's office come streaming in flashing badges and a
subpoena. It wasn't long after that that I got paid a visit from a SAG
attorney who wanted to know the details of my application. It was
determined that, since I only "built the tool" without any knowledge that it
would be used for allegedly fraudulent purposes, I was not liable.

Easily one of the most "exciting" days of my career.

- Dan

On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 9:39 AM, David Gibbs <david@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

VanEaton, George wrote:

Why are computer programmers and the companies they work for equally,
legally and morally responsible for system failures and illegal activity
done with in the company?

Are programmers responsible for things such as system failures and
illegal activity done in the company?

Unless the programmer deliberately causes the system failure, or
performs the illegal activity, I can't see how they could be held
responsible.

A good organization will have safeguards in place to prevent illegal
activities ... along with QA procedures and recovery plans to protect
against system failures. If the procedures & plans fail (or don't
exist), then it's the companies responsibility, not the programmers.

david


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IBM System i - For when you can't afford to be out of business

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