One of the greatest dangers with social networking sites in relation to the
disclosure of confidential information is that employees forget how ‘public’
certain platforms are. In addition, the very nature of many sites is to encourage
participation in the ‘on line’ conversation, where an exchange of views or
information can feel like a private discussion but is in fact available for all to see.
In the circumstances, there is great scope for the accidental disclosure of
confidential information.
One hears of lawyers taking to twitter to comment on how exciting it is to work
on the ‘vodafone’ deal (a clear breach of not only confidentiality but also possible
regulatory requirements about announcements of deals to the market etc) or of
employees getting drunk on a Friday night and at 2 am commenting on blogs
confirming sensitive information relating to their employer. The only thing an
employer can do to prevent these sorts of breaches is to educate its workforce.
There are however some breaches of confidentiality that employers have not
even thought of but which are placing them at risk in a number of ways.
Consider for example, a salesman who has his own personal ‘LinkedIn’ account
who then ‘links in’ with most of the customers he meets through his work. T