Professional Ethics & Standards Flashcards

A client provides a CAP analyst with a dataset containing customer records that include personal identifiers not needed for the analysis. Best ethical practice is to:

Answer: Minimize the data by removing or de-identifying fields unnecessary to the analytical purpose

Data minimization and de-identification limit privacy risk by ensuring only data necessary for the stated purpose is retained and used.

A CAP professional is pressured by a manager to present a model's 70% accuracy as 'over 90% reliable' in a sales pitch. Complying would primarily violate which ethical principle?

Answer: Truthfulness and avoidance of misrepresentation of results

Overstating model performance misrepresents analytical results, breaching the core duty of honesty in professional claims.

After completing an engagement, a CAP analyst wants to publish a conference case study using the client's project details. Ethically, the analyst must first:

Answer: Obtain the client's consent and anonymize proprietary or confidential details as agreed

Confidentiality obligations survive the engagement, so publication requires client consent and appropriate anonymization.

A government agency hires a CAP analyst whose model will determine benefit eligibility. Which practice best supports accountability for this high-stakes model?

Answer: Documenting the methodology, enabling audits, and providing a mechanism to contest decisions

High-stakes automated decisions demand documentation, auditability, and recourse mechanisms so affected individuals can challenge outcomes.

A CAP analyst inherits a legacy model with no documentation and is asked to certify its outputs for regulatory reporting. The ethical course of action is to:

Answer: Refuse to certify until the model is validated and its methodology is understood and documented

Certifying results without understanding or validating the underlying model would misrepresent professional assurance the analyst cannot honestly give.

During vendor selection, a software supplier offers a CAP analyst free conference travel while the analyst is evaluating that vendor's product. The analyst should:

Answer: Decline or disclose the offer per organizational policy because it creates a conflict of interest

Gifts from parties affected by an analyst's professional judgment create conflicts of interest that must be declined or disclosed under applicable policy.

A CAP analyst realizes a client intends to use a churn model's outputs to target vulnerable elderly customers with deceptive retention offers. The analyst's ethical duty is to:

Answer: Raise the concern about harmful use, and decline to support the deceptive application if it is not resolved

Practitioners share responsibility for foreseeable harmful uses of their work and should object to and withdraw from applications that harm the public.