ASSUMPTION POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE OF SOUTHERN MINDANAO

Prk. 4, Sta. Marina, Brgy. Tigatto, Davao City

Tel No. 225-0720 – 23 local 2011 Agdao Campus, 2013 Tigatto Campus
apcsm.tigatto2013@gmail.com

WORK IMMERSION
MODULE 4

CONFIDENTIALITY IN THE WORKPLACE

What this module is about

Confidentiality in the workplace is rule number one in the book of business etiquette. Not only are you
showing your customers, clients and employees a level of common courtesy by protecting their data, but you’re
also fulfilling your legal responsibility to prevent sensitive information from being leaked. Such breaches of
confidentiality can have catastrophic consequences for your business, so it’s worth ensuring you understand
how to adhere to this ethical, legal duty.

Look at it this way, in a single day one employee could be handling all sorts of private or intellectual
information, from customer contact details to financial information regarding the company. Not to mention the
data that could be retrieved if your computer systems were accessed by an external party. Without an
employee confidentiality agreement and security procedures in place, your data is at risk of a breach.

After going through the module, you are expected to:

1. Display ethical practices and the principles of confidentiality;

2. Understand the general employee confidentiality and privacy rules, as well as
guidelines and laws that apply to confidentiality and privacy in the workplace.

Lesson 1: CONFIDENTIALITY

CONFIDENTIALITY

Confidentiality may be defined as:

 Being entrusted with or holding information (both written and verbal) and giving it only to the
right time in the right place.
 Respecting the privacy of personally disclosed information when permission has not been given
to share it.

What ways can confidentiality be breached?

 Not putting case notes away
 Discussing matters in a public place
 Not checking identification

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  Giving part information and thinking that is acceptable e.g., not naming but disclosing all the other
information

Why is maintaining confidentiality important?

 Uphold client’s rights
 Professional approach
 Establishes trust
 Supports choice
 Preserves respect for the client and self-esteem

When can confidentiality be overruled?

 Client has broken the law
 Information if withheld could put others at risk
 Information suggests the client is in danger—form self or others

Importance of Confidentiality at Work

Confidentiality is of paramount importance. It is the employee’s responsibility to treat all the information in
the workplace with care and caution. An employee should be prudent enough not to disclose any information
that the organization considers sensitive and confidential, to a third party, until and unless the employee has
consulted and taken permission from his supervisor regarding the same. Also, one should refrain from sharing
any personal details with fellow colleagues at work. This helps to maintain a professional attitude at work.

An employee should know what files or material he is permitted to access in the office and e should
adhere to that. Under no circumstance should these files be shared or given to unauthorized people. This is
because if it reaches the wrong hands, it can be considered as a breach of confidentiality and the employee
may even be dismissed for it. Also, employee should not discuss any business dealings with the clients,
outside work.

As far as the employer is concerned, any personal or professional details of employees should be
handled with prudence. Data related to the personal details of an employee, application forms, references,
health data, salary structure should be kept well under wraps because if they are misused, it can lead to
discrimination in the workplace. Only staff members of the HR department who require the data for certain
purposes should be given access to the personal files of employees. Maintaining confidentiality is important for
varied reasons. The client or the customer can file legal suits against the organization or its employees. This
can have negative repercussions on the business’s reputation as well. So, it becomes very important for the
employees as well as the organization to protect information in the workplace.

How to maintain confidentiality in the Workplace?

The HR department should devise strategies and guidelines to ensure that workplace confidentiality is
maintained. Here are some effective steps which can be taken to protect information.
The human resource professionals should take necessary steps to prevent the misuse of information
that is personal. This is applicable to the HR department as well. Personal files of employees and the
management should be safely stored to avoid misuse, loss or unauthorized access.

Once the policies are devised, the next thing to do is to communicate the same to all the employees,
supervisors, and managers. Training them about the confidentiality issues by giving then printouts of the policy
or holding meetings and seminars in the office which teach the importance of confidentiality to the employees,
should be done on a regular basis.

It is very important that the employees know which actions of theirs will be considered as a breach of
confidentiality and what will be the consequences of the same, to deter them from doing so.

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 With most of the information these days stored electronically, to ensure its safety, sophisticated electronic
methods such as firewalls, password protection, encryption, etc. should be adopted. This will keep the access,
usage, and transmission of the protected data, safe.

Disposing off sensitive information in the right manner, if it is not required anymore is equally important.
The employer or the human resource personnel should do it in such a way that there are no potential leaks.

The privacy policies and guidelines should be updated regularly according to the new laws derived by the
government. The same should be communicated to the employees to ensure their compliance. By maintaining
the confidentiality standards in the workplace, an organization not only protects itself from legal hassles but
improves the employee productivity as well by providing them with a secure and safe work environment.

CONFIDENTIALITY OF INFORMATION

 Information about a individual is their information

 Access is restricted
 You should be active not passive
 The need to maintain confidently extends beyond the workplace
 You should know who to go to for support and advice
 The need-to-know principle is a well-established way
 Form a consistent shared view amongst staff
 Never promise to keep secret without adding the warning that you might need to tell someone else
depending on what the secret is

There are a number of Acts of parliament which have a direct bearing on the way information relating to
individuals is handled and stored. They form a legal framework within which you work. The most of these are:
 The Data Protection Act 1984
 Access to Medical Records Act 1988
 Access to Health Records Act 1990

DATA PROTECTION ACT

The most important single aspect of this Act to remember is that it covers personal data about an
individual person of any age called ‘data subject’ stored in a computer by someone called a ‘data user’. The
Act provides that data shall:
 Be held fairly and lawfully
 Be held for one or more specified purposes
 Not be held or disclosed in a manner incompatible with those purposes
 Be adequate relevant and not excessive in relation to those purposes
 Be accurate and kept up to date
 Not be held for longer than is necessary for those purposes

Access to Medical Records Act

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 The purpose of this Act was to give individuals a right of access to any medical report about themselves
provided by any medical practitioner for employment or insurance purpose.

Access to Health Records Act

The intention of this act was to give individuals the right of access to their own health records in order to
provide for the correction of inaccurate records. It excludes records covered by the Data Protection Act.

Reference ---------------------------------------------------------------
Work Immersion Workbook by Wacks Venzon - issuu

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