content/chapters/07_viewpoint.md

# 7. Point of view — who is in the room, who is not

This chapter is about who the case talks about and who it forgets to mention, and why the people it forgets are often the most important ones.

The case sets it up as a debate between two groups: the school and the students. "The university argues...students and staff are concerned." So when you write about it, the natural thing is to line up the school's reasons against the students' concerns and try to balance them.

But "the school" and "the students" are each shorthand for many different people with different positions, and several important voices are not in the case at all.

Take "the school" first. It is at least five different roles, each pushing for the system for different reasons:

- A vice principal worried about a scandal on her watch.
- A counselling director who has seen real crises and wants any tool that might help.
- An IT team finally with a project to build.
- A legal office wanting a paper trail in case something goes wrong.
- A communications office wanting a story to tell.

None of them is the villain. Each makes a sensible decision in her own role. The system that comes out is something no one alone would have chosen.

Now look at "the students". They are at least three different positions, and these positions actually conflict with each other:

- Some genuinely want the school to notice them, and would be relieved to be flagged.
- Some would rather decide for themselves when to ask for help, and would feel being flagged is an intrusion.
- Some are most likely to be wrongly flagged *and* most exposed to harm from being flagged at the same time.

You cannot design the system to satisfy all three groups at once.

Now think about who is not in the case at all:

- Students who got flagged but never told. They have no way of speaking about their situation because they do not know they have one.
- Future students who enrol after the system is deployed and never had a chance to opt in.
- The student's own future self, who might apply for insurance ten years later when the "high-risk" record from age 19 still exists somewhere in the school's data.

A stronger argument splits each group apart and brings in at least one perspective the case forgot to mention.