Confidential Information Policy

Confidential information is a valuable business asset. As a term, “confidential information” can encompass a variety of proprietary information, often including intellectual property and trade secrets.

Businesses of all sizes will deal with confidential information of some form or another. It may include things like business plans, details of contractual negotiations and terms, internal documentation, business methods, and customer databases. Continuing on up, confidential information may refer to more complex proprietary information such as research, patents, formulae, trade secrets, and much more.

This Confidential Information Policy has been created to assist businesses in setting out rules and guidelines to govern the access to, and use of, confidential information by employees and others working on their behalf.

The Policy begins by defining “confidential information”. This document takes a relatively short-form approach to the definition, designed to cover a range of information instead of being overly prescriptive. In some cases, however, it may be desirable to replace this definition with details of specific types of confidential information held by your business.

The definition also clearly states that merely labelling something “confidential” will not make it so if it doesn’t have the “necessary quality of confidence” required by law.

It is also important to note that confidential may incorporate personal data. As the rules surrounding personal data (such as the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018) are complex and important in their own right, this Policy simply cross-refers to a dedicated Data Protection Policy (with optional references to other related policies), rather than dealing with personal data simplistically or adding unnecessary complexity to this document by covering it in full. A Data Protection Policy and other related policies are available here.

The Policy goes on to state who is responsible for it and to whom it applies (i.e., all employees, agents, contractors, and other third parties working for the business).

Central to the Policy is a set of specific obligations aimed at protecting and maintaining the confidentiality of confidential information are set out, including not using it without the appropriate authorisation, not disclosing it without authorisation, and not discussing or displaying it in public or in front of visitors.

Whistleblowing is also noted in the Policy, making it clear that the Policy is not intended to prevent any communication or action that is protected by whistleblowing legislation. An optional reference is also included to a Whistleblowing Policy (available here).

Other sections of the Policy address matters such as confidentiality agreements, accidental disclosure, and monitoring.

Optional phrases / clauses are enclosed in square brackets. These should be read carefully and selected so as to be compatible with one another. Unused options should be removed from the document.

This Confidential Information Policy contains the following clauses:

1. Introduction
2. Definition of Confidential Information
3. Responsibility for and Scope of this Policy
4. Maintaining the Confidentiality of Confidential Information
5. Confidentiality Agreements
6. Accidental or Inadvertent Disclosure of Confidential Information
7. Monitoring
8. Breach of This Policy
9. Policy Review
10. Implementation of Policy

This Confidential Information Policy is unlocked and in .docx format. Either enter the requisite details in the highlighted fields or adjust the wording to suit your purposes.

Once you have purchased access to the appropriate document folder click on the “Download Document” link below. You will be asked what you want to do with the file. It is recommended that you save the document to a location of your choice prior to viewing.

Confidential Information Policy is part of Business Documents. Just £35.00 + VAT provides unlimited downloads from Business Documents for 1 year.