Employee Confidentiality Agreement

An employee confidentiality agreement, also known as a non-disclosure agreement or a “NDA,” makes it clear to an Employee that he or she may not disclose company secrets under any circumstances, with the exception of prior written approval. It is advised that, in addition to their Contract, the employee sign the employee confidentiality agreement on their first day so that both parties are legally protected.
Furthermore, the employee confidentiality agreement is in effect until the employee’s termination or, in some cases, for a length of time beyond termination. Furthermore, the agreement remains in effect until the information becomes general knowledge or the employee is freed from the agreement.

Employees must be well-versed in the industries for which they work. A confidentiality agreement is essential for safeguarding the company’s financial information, customer data, and Intellectual Property from accidental or intentional disclosure.
Employees recognize that releasing sensitive information is a violation of contract and a criminal offense when they sign a confidentiality agreement form or a simple non disclosure agreement. Without such an agreement, businesses may have difficulty encouraging workers not to discuss personal information or penalizing those who do.
In short, establishing a confidentiality agreement has nothing to lose and a lot to gain.

When an employer and an employee or worker reach an agreement to settle a workplace issue, they may utilize an NDA to keep either of the following confidential:

1. The specifics of a contract

2. The fact that an agreement was reached

When an employer and an employee or worker desire to settle a matter that one or both of them wish to keep private:

This does not exclude someone from claiming that an agreement has been reached.

This is used when someone want to keep the existence of an agreement private. This might be when only a few persons are aware of the arrangement and do not want others to know. Employee Confidentiality Agreement may also be used for the following reasons:

A confidentiality agreement or non-disclosure agreement does not have to be elaborate or full of legal language. It merely needs to provide the essential facts in a clear and basic manner. While some secrecy agreements will include more material, all will include the following:

In general, confidential information is any information about a company that is not publicly available. Passwords, business-related communications, trade secrets, personal data of persons and third parties, pricing information, and customer information may all be included.
Your employee employment agreements should explicitly specify the categories of company information that are deemed secret (and hence cannot be disclosed).
Employment contracts should also specify when your workers are permitted to reveal such information. Standard exceptions to the responsibility not to divulge sensitive information include the following situations:

1. The law compels such disclosure

2. The disclosure is required in order to file tax returns

3. The information is already publicly available

The operational risk is evident and widely understood: if the information disclosed by the employee gives a competitor a competitive advantage over you, you may suffer financial loss as a result of client revenue shifting from you to that competitor.
The legal risk is that if you were negligent in allowing this leak to happen, your company is vicariously liable for your employee’s actions, which could put your company in violation of its contractual confidentiality obligations to third parties.
This could result in a lawsuit for damages against you, or it could put your company in violation of its obligations under the Personal Data Protection Act, resulting in a regulatory action by the Personal Data Protection Commission against your company.

If you discover that an employee has knowingly violated confidentiality, the first step is to acquire evidence in order to:

1. Understand the scope of the breach

2. Take action against the employee in breach

If the violation is substantial, you may want to consider using the clause in your Employment Contract that permits you to Terminate Employment without cause (you should ensure that your employment agreement has such a term).
Unless you work for the government, a violation of confidentially is not a criminal offense, thus there is no purpose in involving the police. However, you may want to Hire a Lawyer to sue the employee for breach of the secrecy agreement in his employment contract.
To do so, the breach must have resulted in genuine financial loss to your company, and you must attempt to estimate how much loss was inflicted. The loss might be in the form of good will, genuine clients, or anything else.
If required, a lawyer might retain the expertise of a forensic Accountant to aid in quantifying this.
In addition to pursuing damages to compensate you for the quantifiable financial loss, the lawyer may be able to get an injunction prohibiting the employee from keeping or sharing any more sensitive information.