There was a time when most workplaces banned social media and personal mailing systems because managers were worried about business information being leaked to rivals. Today, some managements still ban social media but this is to optimize bandwidth since most people have smartphones loaded with apps. Every company’s information technology team has to find new ways of securing information.

As we create more communication channels, we also become more vulnerable. But this outweighs the positives of having free-flowing communications.

On the same note, as the digital world takes over communication, the most critical question that keeps us awake is how much business information can remain confidential.

There was a time when many micro, small, and medium enterprises or MSMEs were reluctant to disclose details of director-level stakeholders of the company, to prevent critical escalations. The government then ordered transparency and this practice was dropped. One can easily look up the construct of a company by visiting its website.

While we are on the topic, we should also differentiate between what we define as confidentiality for business and what is meant by privacy. Confidentiality primarily refers to internal business information shared between the owners of a business and other individuals or entities that should not be communicated to a third party without the consent of the business owners. Privacy, on the other hand, is more personal, referring to an expectation of freedom from intrusion into personal matters or information. While both are of extreme importance, this blog is more about confidentiality.

Normally we define confidential business information as that which holds economic value, which if shared with anyone with a vested interest might negatively impact the business. As most information is stored digitally and can flow freely, it is important to ensure that it does not go beyond the designated recipients. IT solutions play a major role here and we should not cut corners while implementing them.

On the other hand, information is the key to every business and it must flow. Blanket restrictive measures could affect performance. Hence availability is also important and we need to be reasonable on what information we should consider confidential. By definition, confidentiality is specific to the profile of the person who has access to the information. The level of detail of the information that gets shared also defines its confidentiality. For example, while individual invoices generated for a customer may be confidential, the figures add up to the turnover of the organization, which has a much lower rating of confidentiality.

It is important that we maintain a balance and treat information on its merit and deploy measures that are optimal to facilitate sharing.