Employee Role of Confidentiality

THE EMPLOYEE ROLE OF CONFIDENTIALITY:

Confidentiality or confidential information:

·        Information considered desirable to be kept secret.

·        Any information that the employer or client would like to have kept secret in order to compete effectively against business rivals.

·        This information includes how business is run, its products, and suppliers, which directly affects the ability of the company to compete in the market place

·        Helps the competitor to gain advantage or catch up

Privileged information, Proprietary information and Patents:

Privileged information:

·        Information available only on the basis of special privilege‟ such as granted to an employee working on a special assignment.

Proprietary information:

·        Information that a company owns or is the proprietor of.

·        This is primarily used in legal sense.

·        Also called Trade Secret. A trade secret can be virtually any type of information that has not become public and which an employer has taken steps to keep secret.

Patents:

·        Differ from trade secrets.

·        Legally protect specific products from being manufactured and sold by competitors without the express permission of the patent holder.

·        They have the drawback of being public and competitors may easily work around them by creating alternate designs.

Obligation of Confidentiality:

1. Based on ordinary moral considerations:

I. Respect for autonomy:

·        Recognizing the legitimate control over private information (individuals or corporations).

·        This control is required to maintain their privacy and protect their self-interest.

II. Respect for Promise:

·        Respecting promises in terms of employment contracts not to divulge certain information considered sensitive by the employer

III. Regard for public well being:

·        Only when there is a confidence that the physician will not reveal information, the patient will have the trust to confide in him.

·        Similarly only when companies maintain some degree of confidentiality concerning their products, the benefits of competitiveness within a free market are promoted.

2. Based on Major Ethical Theories:

·        All theories profess that employers have moral and institutional rights to decide what information about their organization should be released publicly.

·        They acquire these rights as part of their responsibility to protect the interest of the organization.

·        All the theories, rights ethics, duty ethics and utilitarianism justify this confidentiality but in different ways.

Effect of Change of Job on Confidentiality:

·        Employees are obliged to protect confidential information regarding former employment, after a change of job.

·        The confidentiality trust between employer and employee continues beyond the period of employment.

·        But, the employee cannot be forced not to seek a change of job.

·        The employer‘s right to keep the trade secrets confidential by a former employee should be accepted at the same time, the employee‘s right to seek career advancement cannot also be denied.