When Hinde is not dancing, the badge alerts people to the context of their interaction. This is not mandated or even recommended by the System. It’s just an outgrowth of everyone being able to query things about one another through a data connection: rather than make people go through the business of getting offended and then doing a search on her, and then being embarrassed for not realising or remembering that her consciousness is a bit different from theirs, Hinde chooses—as many or most people in her situation now do—to identify her status in advance. There are many advantages to the end of privacy, and one of them is the obsolescence of social awkwardness. The Inspector finds this outcome both efficient and laudable.