GEN300 How can we decide when preserving privacy should take precedence and when we should give precedence to other needs? The comparative gains and losses must be weighed.  The gains from invading privacy are usually obvious, but some of the largest costs of invading privacy are more subtle.  These include not only the short-term strains on relationships and the losses to the person whose privacy has been breached, but the broader erosion of trust, a form of moral and social capital that is critical to sustaining community and building relationships.  People’s conduct changes when their trust is eroded. They might, for example, stop consulting the doctor, therapist, or rabbi, or they might become less committed to their employer or friend.  Given the high cost of violating privacy, compelling reasons should exist for doing so.  One simple way of gaining perspective on a decision involving privacy is to consider how others whose ethics you respect will view you if you breach privacy.  Will they find your explanation compelling? Will they appreciate what you have accomplished?  When violating privacy also involves breaching confidentiality, the moral price of doing so increases considerably because such a violation also involves breaking an explicit promise, or at least an implied one, that confidentiality will be maintained.  This results in an even more substantial breakdown of trust.  Therefore, it is much harder to justify, though the examples above [i.e., duty to warn a third party when in danger of serious emotional or physical injury; reporting a wrongdoer to authorities] indicate that on very rare occasions breaching confidentiality may be the right thing to do.  … Weighing “comparative gains and losses” of privacy against other needs is no easy matter, made even more difficult by our inability to be objective about ourselves.  As it is written [this verse]: “It is not good for the human to be alone.”  We need to seek out and to cultivate trusted counsel to help us decide such matters.  AGTJL 114