Ethics Designing ethical services
All teams designing and building MoJ digital services should be mindful of how their work may impact people and society.
Use this guidance to make sure your team designs and develops responsibly. This will help reduce, mitigate or remove harm.
How to consider ethics
As part of your service assessment, you’ll be expected to show how you’ve considered the ethics of your service. Find out more about preparing for an assessment.
If your team is not preparing for a service assessment, you should still make sure your service is ethical by:
Why you should consider ethics
There are many reasons to consider ethics. Some positive impacts include:
- making sure vulnerable people are not exploited or put in danger
- lowering the chances of your service harming people
- reducing the risk of re-traumatisation and making people feel psychologically safe (by using a trauma-aware or trauma-informed approach)
- making sure no groups are discriminated against (by understanding bias within your team)
- making sure people trust your service and that they do not lose confidence in MoJ (by explaining where you’ve used AI and automated decision-making)
What delivery teams should do
- Consider ethical principles and make ethics a practical part of your design process.
- Do an ethics review if appropriate for your service - this will help you understand the impact your service has on people.
- Find out more about preparing for a service assessment.