How can you protect your confidential information?

As a business owner, you may have confidential information that you and your business’ stakeholders should not share outside of the business.

This can include information that has some commercial value to your business, such as:

• financial statements;
• internal processes;
• client lists; or
• trade secrets.

You should protect confidential information to maintain its value and to prevent competitors using it to your detriment.

This guide will explain how you can protect your business’ confidential information.

What is Confidential Information?

There are many types of information that can be confidential.

These include:

• ideas;
• concepts;
• designs;
• text;
• graphics;
• technology; and
• inventions.

Information can be confidential regardless of whether it is tangible, including ‘ideas’ and ‘concepts’.

Some types of information require disclosure to the public in order to be protected by law, such as patents.

You may also have privacy law obligations for information that you own, including employee and customer information.

Protection of Confidential Information

Non-Disclosure Agreement

A non-disclosure agreement (NDA) is an agreement between the owner of confidential information and a recipient of that confidential information.

It is a contractual way of ensuring that the recipient handles the information correctly.

NDAs should contain a definition and a purpose.

It should define the confidential information so that it is clear what the recipient cannot disclose.

Your NDA should state that the recipient cannot disclose this information, whether in spoken discussions or through other means such as text, images or products.

Your NDA should also set a clear purpose for the disclosure of the information.

Read our guide on when you should consider having a non-disclosure agreement to find out more

You can also use any of our non-disclosure templates

Non-disclosure agreement – one way

Non-disclosure agreement – mutual

Non-disclosure agreement – Consultant/Contractor

Disclosing Confidential Information to Your Workers

Both employees and contractors may come into contact with confidential information.

Your employment and contractor agreements should contain clauses stating that your employees and contractors cannot share the confidential information except in certain circumstances.

The agreement should also specify that this applies both during and after the engagement.

As a precaution, it is best to only reveal confidential information to people within the business who need to know the information.

Authorised Disclosure

Confidential information may be disclosed in an authorised manner as long as the recipient complies with any relevant NDA or contract.

Your NDA should outline when and to whom the recipient may disclose confidential information.

Your NDA should also state that any parties that the recipient discloses the information to must also comply with the NDA.

Unauthorised Disclosure

To enforce a breach of your NDA, it may be appropriate to communicate with the other party:

• why you believe there is a breach of the NDA;
• what damage you have suffered (for example, if a recipient discloses your trade secrets to your competitors, the damage you suffer may be a loss of sales); and
• the resolution you propose (for example, destroying the confidential information).

Depending on the terms of the NDA, the party in breach may need to compensate you for any loss or harm you experienced as a result of the breach.

What If I Do Not Have an NDA?

If there is no contractual obligation or NDA to keep the information confidential, you may be able to rely on an equitable duty of confidence.

In order to rely on an equitable duty of confidence, you need to demonstrate that in the circumstances, the recipient was not allowed to disclose the information to others.

These circumstances arise as a result of your relationship with the recipient.

A duty of confidence can arise in any situation where the relationship between the parties means the recipient should understand that information communicated to them is confidential.

This is the case even if there is no contractual agreement.

This could be in circumstances where your NDA is not valid, or because there is no NDA.

In order for you to rely on a duty of confidence, you need to satisfy that:

• the recipient was obliged to keep the information confidential;
• the information needed to be private and was not something commonly known;
• the breach (including use and disclosure of the information) was unauthorised; and
• the disclosing party suffered loss as a result of the breach (for example, the party disclosing the confidential information suffered a loss of sales because the recipient revealed their trade secrets to their competitors).

Key takeaways

As a business owner, you should always take the necessary steps to protect your business’ confidential information.

A non-disclosure agreement (NDA) can protect the disclosure of this information.

NDAs can apply to anyone that comes in contact with confidential information.

Recipients should sign the NDA before you disclose confidential information to them.

If there is a breach of the NDA, the party breaching the NDA may need to pay you compensation, depending on the NDA.