What is Confidentiality in the Workplace?

Confidentiality refers to exercising control over information by making crucial decisions about its accessibility and disclosure.

Confidentiality in the workplace involves keeping proprietary information like business information, employee information and client details private. In case there is a data breach, the company would be held accountable and can be penalized in extreme cases.

Confidential information can include company budgets, accounting methods, product development plans, marketing plans, trade secrets or patents. Employees must refrain from discussing these topics with anyone outside of work, in case sensitive information like this can make its way into the hands of a competitor or other entities who can exploit the information harmfully. This can result in legal repercussions, damage to the company’s reputation and significant financial losses.

Safeguards to protect confidentiality in the workplace

Companies often undertake several measures to preserve confidentiality in the workplace. These can include:

• Providing confidentiality training to employees
• Getting employees to sign NDAs
• Having a confidentiality policy to help employees discern between confidential and non-confidential information.
• Limiting access to view, edit or copy confidential data through role-based authorizations.
• Putting proper safety measures like locked cabinets for physical information and identity verification-based access for digital information.

How does workplace confidentiality matter?

Workplace confidentiality matters for several reasons. It is important for legal and reputational reasons to ensure that your future employment does not depend on revealing information because people generally do not like the idea of their privacy being violated.