Stop Flirting with Confidentiality Leaks

The current box office hit, A Game of Shadows, perpetuates the reputation of Sherlock Holmes as the smartest man in the room. And as you might have guessed, that sometimes put the fictional sleuth at odds with Scotland Yard over their rough shod investigatory techniques. Imagine the how tickled he would be if he were to read about the recent reprimand the Metropolitan police officers have received about chatting with “flirty reporters."

According to The Guardian, the officers have been ordered to avoid meeting reporters over drinks at local pubs. Seems that alcohol loosens inhibitions and has led to too many confidential chats and leaks that in hindsight are harming the venerable Scotland Yard.

What works for Scotland Yard is also a cautionary warning and tip for  businesses.  They face a similar exposure.  Not so much from flirty reporters, but from nosey suppliers and customers. 

How?

One scenario goes something like this.  A supplier who is looking to do business with your company invites a lower level employee involved with product development to lunch.  This employee is unaccustomed to being wined and dined in a business setting.  They are flattered by the attention, are proud of their work, and feel entitled to bragging rights.  The employee might even believe they are helping the vendor prepare a quotation for you.

So over a burger and a beer they’re more than happy to share information about their latest projects. Information that is confidential.

If you don’t have a confidentiality agreement in place between the vendor and your company, such chattiness could mean your valuable information gets compromised and your business could be harmed.  After all, the vendor is free to disclose it to your competitor (the one who is ready to place a really big order), or to anyone else, and there’s not much you can do about it from the legal perspective.

Another scenario for accidently leaking sensitive business information involves social media.  Leaks through tweets, through Facebook updates, chat rooms, and online professional groups and forums (to name a few) all create opportunities for inadvertent information leaks.

It therefore pays to periodically remind employees at all levels of the organization about their duty to protect confidential information as well as how and when to use confidentiality agreements.  Policies are good; but, reinforcing and supplementing those messages with live training is even better. 

Once employees start to see how they can be seduced and lured into compromising business situations, they’ll be more mindful about taking the necessary precautions to protect you confidential business information.

They’ll be a champ instead of chump because as Sherlock Holmes famously said to Watson: "It's elementary . . . ."

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Hanna Hasl-Kelchner is a business legal strategist, author, speaker and trainer who teaches and coaches business people on how to avoid lawsuits.  She is the author of The Business Guide to Legal Literacy: What Every Manager Should Know About the Law and forthcoming Champions: Knock Out Strategies for Health, Wealth and Success from Today’s Leading Experts.  Follow Hanna on Twitter @nononsenselawyr. Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to get the latest updates.