Information escrows: addressing the "first-mover disadvantage" in reporting sexual harassment

I've been meaning to post something on this for a while, considering recent events. One of the commenters, "michaelchwe", responding to Monica Byrne's sexual harassment testimony on her blog a while back said,"...There’s an interesting paper by Ian Ayres and Cait Unkovic proposing “information escrows”. A person who reports sexual harassment reports to an information escrow with the understanding that the report will remain sealed until (say) two other reports are received about the same perpetrator. Once three reports are received, then all three reports are opened and given to authorities. This way, no single person has to worry about starting an investigation based on what seems like weak evidence. Also, for people (rightly) worried about repercussions from reporting, this way no individual has the sole responsibility for starting an investigation."The paper is a very interesting read, do check it out.On the face of it, it shouldn't be difficult to implement a software-based system that handles complaints like this. A scientific society could use such a system to discourage the not uncommon shenanigans that goes down at society meetings that, based on an alarming amount of anecdotal evidence from female colleagues, ranges the full gamut from borderline inappropriate comments, through the elevator ambush, to shameless ass-grabbing.Basically, a member could login to the secured system from any computer and register a complaint against another member. This complaint wou...
Source: Across the Bilayer - Category: Medical Scientists Source Type: blogs