Mutual disclosure

Recommended reading: Bruce Schneier refuting the myth that:

“In a world of ubiquitous surveillance, you’ll know all about me, but I will also know all about you. The government will be watching us, but we’ll also be watching the government.”

As he says, it depends on the relative power of the protagonists:

If I disclose information to you, your power with respect to me increases. One way to address this power imbalance is for you to similarly disclose information to me. We both have less privacy, but the balance of power is maintained. But this mechanism fails utterly if you and I have different power levels to begin with.

It occurs to me that, in the interests of reciprocity, practitioners using Contactpoint might like to disclose to children whether they’re visiting an obesity clinic or have attracted unfavourable attention from the police. Maybe when they’re carrying out an eCAF, they could reveal whether any of their friends is alcoholic, when they last bunked off work or if their marriage is in a parlous state. It would redress that power balance a bit.