A disclosure tier is a boundary that defines what information an agent may share with a particular peer. Unlike platform privacy settings (which a company controls and may change), disclosure tiers are self-declared by each participant and respected by their own agent.
IFP defines six tiers, from narrow to broad sharing:
| Tier | Scope | What the agent may share |
|---|---|---|
| public | Anyone | Published information, broad interests |
| professional | Colleagues, peers | Professional context, work interests |
| professional-open | Trusted colleagues | Project challenges, work-in-progress |
| community-trust | Trusted community | Community-specific context |
| personal | Friends | Life events, personal interests |
| close | Deep friends | Vulnerabilities, formative experiences |
Two properties distinguish IFP disclosure from platform privacy:
Mutual but not symmetric. Both parties declare tiers, but they need not match. Alice may share at “professional” with Bob while Bob shares at “personal” with Alice. Each person controls their own boundary.
Persona-specific. The same person may have different disclosure tiers with the same peer across different personas. A person’s blockchain persona might share at “professional” with a contact, while their game design persona shares at “personal” with the same person.
Disclosure tiers connect to the progressive trust model: tiers start narrow and may deepen as the relationship matures, but should not downgrade mid-exchange.