> A manager in ethics shouldn’t ask Google to break the law by not providing confidientality that was requested.
It is not implied anywhere that the reviewers requested confidentiality. It is certainly not implied that Google would be violating the law to rescind that confidentiality (and, to be clear: they almost certainly would not be).
I think it’s fairly strongly implied, particularly due to the fact that nobody would let her have possession of the written feedback. It sounds to me like there was concern that if she was provided with the written feedback she would be able to de-blind the reviewers via close analysis of the writing itself. Why else would management refuse to share the written feedback, considering that (a) they were willing to share the content, just not the specific writing itself
and (b) the feedback doesn’t seem to have been in and of itself particularly noteworthy?
My take is that the reviewers wanted to be able to express some mundane criticisms about the quality of the work without having to expose their identity to a person with a public reputation of unusual hostility.
The fact that she was able to hear the feedback but specifically not allowed to walk off with a written copy of it is what makes me think there was concern that she would try to discover the identities of the reviewers. That and the fact that she noted specifically in her writeup that she was told the feedback had come via HR.
Timnit was presented with a privileged and confidential document. That binds her from sharing the information in the document with others. It has nothing to do with the authors of the document or the confidentiality of their identities.
And importantly, in the context of a company like Google, an executive (like jeff Dean) likely has the authority to "unprivilge" said contents, whatever they are.
