Confidentiality
Designing AI use around confidential information
A structured way to examine access, disclosure and review before introducing a new service.
Identify the duty before choosing the tool
Information can be confidential for different reasons: a professional duty, a contract, personal-data rules or the interests of the business. Identify the applicable obligations and the people to whom they are owed. The answer may differ between two processes in the same organization.
Define what the service needs to see
Break a task into the information required for each step. Ask whether a proposed service needs full documents, selected passages or no confidential material at all. Removing names does not automatically make information anonymous; combinations of facts can still identify people or reveal a matter. Evaluate the actual information and context.
Examine access across the service chain
Consider the provider, connected services, support staff and other recipients. In German legal practice, professional secrecy and the rules on using service providers, including section 43e BRAO, require particular attention. A vendor’s general marketing statement does not establish that the proposed use meets those requirements.
Design a usable operating rule
Write down the approved process, allowed information, permitted accounts and review steps. Specify how staff should handle uncertainty. Give people an alternative path when the proposed use is outside the approved scope. Training should use examples close to the work without disclosing confidential client material unnecessarily.
Review changes before they become routine
A new integration, an additional provider or a different kind of document can change the assessment. Keep responsibility for approving those changes explicit. This guide offers questions for scoping the review; it does not decide whether a particular disclosure or service is permitted.
General information and practical frameworks. The legal requirements for a particular organization or use case require individual assessment.
The AI Workflow Playbook