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Case: 0006

Sector: Legal (and other professional services)

Stop looking at my desk!

Should the information professional conceal his/her desk and operating space in order to prevent leaks of sensitive or confidential information?

Summary: In a busy information unit the information professionals’ desks were often covered with working documents, particularly on occasions when there was a great deal of concurrent client activity within the organisation. Most of the material on the desks would be confidential. The problem facing the information staff was how best to cope with the mass of documents needed for their day-to-day work, and at the same time prevent wandering eyes from reading the documents. The documents needed to be on the desk, but the staff of the unit felt awkward in trying to shield the material or ask passers by not to look at it. The staff felt it difficult not to appear to be rude to senior managers.

NOTE: This Case Study is fictitious. It is informed by experience in the information world, but it does not claim to represent a scenario of actual events or relate to individual people or organisations.

Case Study: Information professionals working at a well known consulting firm often needed to keep confidential or sensitive documents on their desks, for example when working for 'celebrity' clients. Sometimes colleagues would happen to walk past their desks and notice, with curiosity, confidential information which had been entrusted to them by the client managers. The information professionals felt awkward at having to ask their colleagues not to be too inquisitive at their desks.

The information unit staff, having raised this issue with senior managers, resolved their dilemma in two ways.

First, the HR (personnel) department was asked to issue guidelines setting out the generally accepted principle of keeping one’s desk clear of confidential material whenever possible and of not leaving it unattended, particularly at night. Staff in all departments were reminded that it was both impolite and improper to look at other people’s desks when it was known that confidential material would be on display.

Secondly, the information unit staff agreed amongst themselves that it would be appropriate to mention to those users who continued to peer at desktops that the information professional treats his/her clients’ work with the utmost confidence and that there is no need for anyone else to know what it on their desks.

In our opinion the information professionals at this firm had no other choice than to seek the support of senior managers in reinforcing the principle of protecting confidential information (which was, after all, an implicit expectation of the firm's clients). It does seem somewhat surprising that staff needed reminding of even common courtesies, but perhaps this too was a lesson to the information professionals that, with their expert access to hard-to-find information, they above all should realise the potential for such information to be of potentially great curiosity value to others and therefore the need to consider greater protection.

One aspect of the information professionals' actions which had a particularly pleasing result was their firm but polite referral to the UK information profession’s Ethical Principles and Code of Professional Practice. This reinforced the information professionals' appearance of working within well defined and acceptable ethical norms, and of upholding good ethical values generally. We do not know whether this was a catalyst to adopting ethical principles more widely across the firm.

	Primary	Secondary
Principles	8	5
Code	B4	D3 - E2
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