There is a conflict between confidentiality and mandatory reporting. The ideal of confidentiality is that anything you say in private that you don’t want recorded or repeated should be kept private. The ideal of mandatory reporting is that if anyone finds out about a crime a person has committed, it should be reported for the sake of justice.

The solution is that we limit both of them in different situations. Confidentiality is generally limited to those who have a crucial and necessary role in keeping information confidential. In other words, those positions or professions that are deemed essential by society and which require confidentiality to function properly. That’s lawyers, medical professionals, and in some cases, religious professionals.

Mandatory reporting is generally limited to those who are in a position that allows access to vulnerable individuals. That’s teachers, social workers, police officers, and sometimes also medical professionals or religious professionals.

Because those include some of the same categories, the law gets very specific and sometimes even contradictory in different jurisdictions.