What is ethical confidentiality?

Asked by: Ezequiel Bashirian DDS  |  Last update: August 18, 2025
Score: 4.7/5 (17 votes)

The ethical duty of confidentiality refers to the obligation of an individual or organization to safeguard entrusted information. The ethical duty of confidentiality includes obligations to protect information from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, modification, loss or theft.

What is an example of a confidentiality ethical dilemma?

For example, if a client confesses to planning a future crime, the lawyer may face a dilemma between maintaining confidentiality and preventing harm. In such cases, lawyers must carefully and ethical decision making consider the legal and ethical implications of breaking confidentiality.

What is the general ethical duty of confidentiality?

The duty of confidentiality encompasses all information relating to the representation. Under the rule, unauthorized disclosure is permit- ted only in specific circumstances, such as to prevent death or bodily harm, to prevent a crime or fraud, or to comply with law or court order.

What is an example of confidentiality?

Examples of confidential information include a person's phone number and address, medical records, and social security. Companies also have confidential information such as financial records, trade secrets, customer information, and marketing strategies.

What is the ethical principle of confidentiality in nursing?

Confidentiality is an important ethical principle in nursing. It is an important legal and medical obligation that all health professionals are supposed to obey. Matters regarding patients should not be disclosed to others at any cost.

Legal and Ethical Aspects of Medicine – Confidentiality: By Nelson Chan M.D.

21 related questions found

What are the ethics of confidentiality?

The ethical duty of confidentiality refers to the obligation of an individual or organization to safeguard entrusted information. The ethical duty of confidentiality includes obligations to protect information from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, modification, loss or theft.

What are the 4 main ethical principles in nursing?

Nurses are advocates for patients and must find a balance while delivering patient care. There are four main principles of ethics: autonomy, beneficence, justice, and non-maleficence. Each patient has the right to make their own decisions based on their own beliefs and values.[4].

What are some examples of confidentiality in nursing?

Use secure communication methods: When discussing patient details, avoid public areas where conversations can be overheard. Use secure communication methods, such as encrypted emails or phone lines, to share patient information with other healthcare providers.

How to explain confidentiality?

Confidentiality is about keeping your information private. It means that when you talk to professionals they shouldn't tell anyone else what you've said. Information that needs to be kept confidential includes: Your name and contact details.

What is the golden rule of confidentiality?

A California attorney may only disclose a client's confidential information without informed consent when the attorney reasonably believes it is “necessary to prevent a criminal act” that will likely result in death or bodily harm.

What is the basic rule of confidentiality?

Paragraph (d) carries forward the language of current rule 3-100 and provides that a lawyer may not disclose any more confidential information than is necessary to prevent a criminal act resulting in serious bodily injury or death.

How to ensure patient confidentiality is maintained?

Generally patient consent is always required before sharing confidential information. Ensure that where necessary you obtain written consent from patients and then store this in their medical file. Remember that when sharing information it is important to share only what is required.

What are ethical principles?

The expression "basic ethical principles" refers to those general judgments that serve as a basic justification for the many particular ethical prescriptions and evaluations of human actions.

What is an example of a confidentiality issue?

Breach of confidentiality examples
  • A company laptop containing sensitive client data is stolen.
  • An employee shares confidential information about a client with family or friends.
  • An employee discloses information they deem not to be of a confidential nature.

What is the biggest ethical issue in healthcare today?

Ethical Issues in Healthcare
  1. Patient Privacy and Confidentiality. The protection of private patient information is one of the most important ethical and legal issues in the field of healthcare. ...
  2. Transmission of Diseases. ...
  3. Relationships. ...
  4. End-of-Life Issues.

What are the 4 main ethical dilemmas?

Ethical dilemmas can be divided according to the types of obligations that are in conflict with each other. For example, Rushworth Kidder suggests that four patterns of conflict can be discerned: "truth versus loyalty, individual versus community, short term versus long term, and justice versus virtue".

What are ethical issues of confidentiality?

Confidentiality Issues in Research

Human subjects have a right to expect that their personal information will not be divulged when the results of a study are published or when data sets from a research project are shared with other investigators.

What are 5 examples of confidentiality?

The following information is confidential:
  • Social Security number.
  • Name.
  • Personal financial information.
  • Family information.
  • Medical information.
  • Credit card numbers, bank account numbers, amount / what donated.
  • Telephone / fax numbers, e-mail, URLs.

What best describes confidentiality?

The term 'confidentiality' means preserving authorized restrictions on access and disclosure, including means for protecting personal privacy and proprietary information.

What is an example of a confidentiality statement in nursing?

This practice recognises the right of every patient to have information about them kept secure and private. Any information given to any member of staff will remain confidential. In exceptional circumstances, permission from the patient will be sought before any information is disclosed.

What are five ways to maintain patient confidentiality?

Ways to protect patient privacy
  • State your name and credentials to start.
  • Confirm the patient's identity at the beginning of each appointment. ...
  • Ensure that you and your patient are each in a private area where you can speak openly. ...
  • Use headphones so others do not overhear confidential information.

What is a real life example of confidentiality?

A good example of a method for protecting sensitive data and ensuring confidentiality is requiring an account number or routing number when banking online. Data encryption is another common method of ensuring confidentiality.

What is confidentiality in nursing ethics?

The nurse has a duty to maintain confidentiality of all patient information, both personal and clinical, in the work setting and off duty in all venues, including social media or any other means of communication (p. 9).

What is the highest ethical principle in nursing?

Accountability

Accountability is chief among the ethical principles in nursing. Each nurse must be responsible for his or her own choices and actions in the course of patient care. Nurses who hold themselves accountable often provide higher-quality patient care.

What is an example of an ethical consideration?

Ethical considerations must be taken into account when conducting research. Some examples of how ethical considerations in research may be included are maintaining confidentiality, offering counselling, debriefing participants and providing the details of the study when asking for consent to partake in research.