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TECHNOLOGY REPORT

Defend your data

T often have ready access to systems and may go Regulations 2018 (SI 2018/597), regulation 2, which sim-

he problem is that trusted company servants
He also points to The Trade Secrets (Enforcement, etc)
unchallenged when interrogating them.
ilarly defines the matter but in legal terms.
Data held by firms is Further, when they leave, they can take unpro- Of course, having a definition is one thing, but how
central to their con- tected company data with them. does it play out in an employment context?
From a legal perspective, Aron Pope, a partner in City
tinued existence and So, the obvious question is how can firms protect what law firm Fox Williams, says that “during employment,
needs protection they hold dear and prevent it from walking out the door employees have an implied duty to keep all information
from those that with a departing employee? confidential. However, once they have left, the picture is
would wish to abuse Information is protected by confidentiality different, and employers will be more at risk”.
it. But while there are There are three general categories of confidential infor- He comments that although employees are still subject
countless malevolent mation: general skill and knowledge; confidential infor- to an implied duty to keep trade secrets confidential,
external actors, hack- mation; and trade secrets, which includes commercially “without specific and robust post-termination confidenti-
ality terms in the employment contract wider valuable
ers and fraudsters, valuable secrets that give a business owner a competitive information is at risk of being passed to a competitor”.
when looking closer advantage. Stevens agrees but thinks that “after the individual’s
to home not all firms Mark Stevens, senior associate at VWV, says that infor- employment ends, the tables are turned, and the balance
properly protect mation can generally be said to be confidential if it “has of public interest favours the employee. Implied confi-
information from the necessary quality of confidence; has been imparted in dentiality obligations are therefore generally insufficient
abuse by employees. circumstances where the recipient knows or ought to in protecting as much information as organisations would
have known of the confidentiality attached to it; and usually like”. But he says that there is an exception: if the
Words by there has been unauthorised use or disclosure of it to the information amounts to a trade secret, then there is an
Adam Bernstein detriment of the rights holder”. implied duty of confidentiality – even after termination of

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