LESSON 4:

CONFIDENTIALITY
IN THE WORKPLACE

Prepared by: Teacher Carl

 Objectives
At the end of the lesson, learners 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
CONFIDENTIALITY
 What does
confidentiality
mean to you?
 CONFIDENTIALITY
❑ Confidentiality is the protection of personal information.

❖ respecting the privacy of personally

disclosed information when permission has
not been given to share it
❖ the entrusting of information
❖ includes written and verbal confidentiality
Confidentiality refers to not discussing
internal goings-on with co-workers.
In other instances, it refers to not
sharing trade secrets and other
company information with competitors, the
press or anyone outside of your company.
The types of information that is considered
confidential can include:
1. name, date of birth, age, sex and address
2. current contact details of family, guardian etc.
3. bank details
4. medical history or records
5. personal care issues
6. service records and file progress notes
7. individual personal plans
8. assessments or reports
9. guardianship orders
10. incoming or outgoing personal correspondence.
 Maintaining confidentiality
include:
● The HR department should devise strategies and guidelines to
ensure that workplace confidentiality is maintained.
● The human resource professionals should take necessary steps to
prevent the misuse of information that is personal
● Separate folders should be kept for both all employees form and
employee medical information.
● All confidential documents should be stored in locked file cabinets
or rooms accessible only to those who have a business “need-to-
know.”
● All confidential information should be protected via firewalls,
encryption and passwords.
 Maintaining confidentiality include:
● All confidential information should be disposed of properly .
● Employees should refrain from discussing confidential information in
public places
● Employees should avoid using e-mail to transmit certain
sensitive or controversial information
● Limit the acquisition of confidential client data (e.g., social
security numbers, bank accounts, or driver’s license numbers) unless it
is integral to the business transaction and restrict access on a “need-to-
know’ basis.
● Before disposing of an old computer, use software programs to wipe out
the data contained on the computer or have the hard drive destroyed.
 Confidential Workplace:
Three Categories
Employee Information
● Many states have laws which govern the confidentiality and
disposal of “personal identifying information”
Management Information
● Confidential management information includes discussions about
employee relations issues,
● disciplinary actions,
● impending layoffs/reductions-in-force,
● terminations,
● workplace investigations of employee misconduct.
 Confidential Workplace:
Three Categories
Business Information
● We oftentimes refer to confidential business information as
“proprietary information” or “trade secrets.”
● This refers to information that’s not generally known to
the public and would not ordinarily be available to
competitors by illegal or improper means.
Business Information
Common examples of “trade secrets”
● business plans,
● financial data,
● budgets and forecasts,
● computer programs and data compilation
● client/customer lists,
● ingredient formulas and recipes,
● membership or employee lists,
● supplier lists
Importance of Confidentiality in
Workplace
Professionalism
● To maintain a general degree of
professionalism, it is important that your
personal details remain personal.
● Disclose your personal details to only a
few people and that too with discretion.
● Getting over-friendly with colleagues is a
major cause of office issues.
Importance of Confidentiality in
Workplace
Safety
● Personal details like annual income,
marital status, and remuneration, if
revealed, can be misused to cause
trouble to you or your organization.
Importance of Confidentiality in
Workplace
Security
● You may have access to sensitive information
of the organization and some of your personal
details, like date of birth, could be your access
code.
● In this case, maintaining confidentiality
becomes important for the security of the
information that is at your disposal.
 What to do?

A subject teacher was asked by her student about his

grades. The teacher opened her class record and let the
student list all his scores and allowed him to compute.
After which, he asked for the grades of his classmates for
comparison. Is the teacher allowed to do so? Why?
 REPUBLIC ACT NO. 10173
AN ACT PROTECTING INDIVIDUAL PERSONAL INFORMATION
IN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS IN THE
GOVERNMENT AND THE PRIVATE SECTOR, CREATING FOR
THIS PURPOSE A NATIONAL PRIVACY COMMISSION, AND
FOR OTHER PURPOSES

DATA PRIVACY ACT OF 2012

 What to do?

As an encoder, you have access on the personal

information of the employees stored in the computer. One
of the customers ask for the address and family
background of a certain employee. Are you allowed to do
so? Why?
 What to do?

One day, you overheard your supervisor and Human

Resource (HR) discussing about upcoming promotions.
There are two employees who are potential candidates but
the other lacks sufficient documents and evidences for
exemplary performance. He happened to be your friend.
Are you going to tell the information to your friend?
What to do?
A study is being conducted looking at the effectiveness of a drug
on depression. The participants are asked to record feelings of
violence, suicide, anger and despair, both before they began taking
the medication and after three weeks of being on the medication.
Each category is assigned a numerical value to display a range of
feelings from very likely to least likely. The study is dependent on
honest answers, the participants have been promised
confidentiality. If 30 of the 100 participants report that they feel
more suicidal since taking the medication, is the researcher
required to report all thirty of the participants?
 Reflect:
*Cite instances where you have broken
confidentiality and recall what have you
done to resolve such.

*What are your realizations after the

session today?
Thank you for
listening