Confidentiality at

What not to do...

Thank you, you confidentiality champ, you!

Consequences of breaching Confidentiality

Confidentiality

@ Youthtown

Unauthorised disclosure to a third party of confidential information, may lead to disciplinary action (up to and including termination of employment).

trust

Key points

Confidentiality is the foundation for trust in the workplace.

Youthtown is committed to ensuring the confidentiality of our business information.

Staff may only disclose confidential information to other staff members and people who have a legitimate reason to know.

Material from the office should not be given to people outside of Youthtown.

No one (without authorisation) should disclose confidential information, or make a public statement concerning Youthtown’s dealings, to the media (the CEO will take care of this).

Do not display confidential data or leave it where it can be easily observed by people who don’t need to know.

Only discuss confidential information relevant to the job at hand.

Immediately inform your Manager of any loss or breach of confidential information.

People unconnected to Youthtown may seem like OK people for venting or boasting about accomplishments.

BUT according to the ‘6 degrees of separation’ theory, we are all connected to everyone else by no more than 6 people!

You never know who knows whom, so be very careful with confidential Youthtown information.

Be careful what information you put in an email.

Emails are too easily forwarded and can be unintentionally distributed to people not cleared to see it.

When in public, do not discuss sensitive business information.

You never know who is at the restaurant table next to yours!

What about past employees of Youthtown?

Do they need to know?

Confidentiality is our responsibility as professionals.

Is it appropriate to vent, boast or share confidential information with them?

Just ask yourself “Do they need to know?”

A true friendship is not based upon the sharing of confidential information.

definition

Disclosure of

confidential information

Aside from the practical and legal problems unauthorised leaks of information can cause, it is also about whether we as individuals can be trusted.

Trust takes a long time to rebuild once it has been broken.

When thinking about confidential information, we need to ask ourselves

“Who needs to know?”

What about my salary information?

If we disclose confidential information to others, they will know that we will disclose their confidential information also.

We need to ensure that children, parents, visitors and colleagues (internal and external) trust us.

People tend not to work with organisations that they think are untrustworthy with private information.

Confidentiality in the workplace is defined as keeping business, employee and customer information private

Now get yourself some headphones, because videos are coming up!

Your salary is confidential to you and your manager.

If you tell one person, you may as well tell ten people!

Discussing your salary with others almost always has a detrimental effect on relationships with your colleagues.

It puts others in a very difficult situation if you seek information about their pay.

Let's see how confidentiality can be ensured...

Expectations

The importance of

maintaining confidentiality

As part of the team at Youthtown, it is expected that any information we learn in the course of our work will remain confidential. This includes information such as:

• Children's, parent's or visitor's records or information
• Programme participant lists
• Financial statements
• Office documents
• Business plans & strategies
• Staff records (all personal information)
• Information related to the next programme.

Privacy of Young people

Failure to maintain confidentiality in the workplace can cause:

• Huge financial losses
• Damage to Youthtown’s reputation
• Damage to your personal reputation
• Compromises to long term business plans if information or ideas are released prematurely

Protecting the privacy of children and young people is critical. You may be exposed to private information in the course of your work. The following video is Australian, but a lot of the information applies equally in NZ.

Confidentiality at