Balancing confidentiality and transparency

Access to information is one of the keys to transparency allowing people to seek and receive public documents serves as a critical tool for fighting corruption, enabling citizens to fully participate in public life, making the public office more efficient and accountable, and helping persons exercise their fundamental human rights as enshrined in the constitution. The citizens are careful because information allows them to participate in priority setting and decision-making to hold their public authorities accountable and assure equal treatment and justice. The free flow of information is the key in seeking public documents such as anything from a birth certificate to a contract for road construction or up to death certificates.

We must also recognize the other side of the coin, confidentiality. Maintaining appropriate confidentiality and individual privacy is equally important while exercising transparency. Confidential information is only used on a need-to-know basis. Every information has a boundary that must be honoured with the protection of anonymity if disclosure would cause harm or personal embarrassment. We must avoid unfounded rumors, hunches, and third-party hearsay or just gossip to protect one’s dignity.

Social media has given us full liberty to write or upload whatever we like. So, respecting and protecting the right to privacy of others is essential. Exercising a culture of respect and trust to maintain confidentiality for preserving the right to privacy is fundamentally necessary for a civilized society. Thus, every citizen has to be respectful of others’ dignity.

To ensure a civilized culture, the balance between confidentiality and transparency needs to be fostered. A responsible form of culture is required to ensure privacy and fair information practices to create the conditions of a balanced position. The balancing of confidentiality and transparency and privacy and accountability are essential to ensure public trust in authorities.

Transparency means that decisions are taken, and their enforcement is done in a manner that follows the rules and regulations. It also means that information is freely available and directly accessible to those who will be affected by such decisions and their enforcement. It also means that enough information is provided and that it is provided in easily understandable forms. All sorts of information should be made available to the public. It is expected that occupying an official position encompasses the obligation to report, explain and be answerable for consequences resulting from one’s actions.

Confidentiality is also critical in situations such as investigations or some other actions. Suppose information is available during an investigation or disciplinary actions, preparing question papers for public examinations, or assessing answer scripts for results. In that case, the whole process will be jeopardized. We must know and understand the distinction between the field of privacy and the public domain. Preparation of question paper or assessing answer script or writing verdict by a judge must not the area of public domain. These are the processes towards reaching the public domain. People have a great interest in knowing the process’s outcome, but not the process itself. If the process is disclosed, the outcome taste will be sour and the whole thing will be useless. If the verdict of a court is known to all before pronouncing it if the result of the examination is disclosed during process, if the question paper is leaked out before examination, people will not accept the result. The purity of the end result will lose its sanctity. Again, pronouncing the verdict in a court case, providing question papers at the examination hall, publishing the result of a public examination is highly expected. People wait to grab the information from the public domain.

Media, public authority, and civil society know very well the difference between public domain and the field of the private domain. Information in the public domain is more acceptable and considered as pure when the private domain maintains high confidentiality and secrecy to produce information for the public domain. Maintaining the privacy of information for an individual is so important for a civilized society that without protecting it, an individual will lose his personal dignity. Within a short time, the negative impact of mistrust may engulf family and society. In these circumstances, everyone should try to establish a culture of protecting the privacy of information for an individual. The sanctity of privacy should be maintained for the greater benefit of society. Today, if anyone breaches someone’s privacy day after tomorrow, s/he may face the same situation. Thus, society should establish a culture to respect each other’s privacy. The information needs to be shared only with those who need to know and whose input is necessary to resolve the issue.

Dignity is a part of human rights and is essential to every individual. To treat someone with dignity is to treat them as beings of worth, in a way that is respectful of them as valued individuals. People love to feel valued, confident, comfortable if their dignity is protected. If privacy is not protected, dignity may also be endangered. They may feel humiliated, embarrassed or ashamed.

Dignity applies equally to those who have the capacity and to those who lack it. Dignity is hampered when unauthorizedly personal information is disclosed in the public sphere. Some patients may not wish to expose their bodies to doctors of the opposite sex. Religious beliefs may influence personal views about modesty. Many health care people know well how to respect patients’ wishes. Lawyers keep their client’s information safe and confidential, sharing it only with those involved in their cases as necessary. Any sharing of information must be legitimate and with consent. Many religions strongly dictate maintaining a person’s confidentiality and privacy with due honour.

Over the last decade, the government made significant strides towards increasing openness and transparency by enacting the Right to Information Act, National Integrity strategy, Whistle Blower Protection Act and associated rules, citizen charters, government websites, and public hearings system, grievance redress, and many more. Various executive actions have been taken to open departmental actions to make them fully functional. Annual Performance Agreement (APA) has also increased the public offices’ accountability. The publication of yearly books or yearly reports of every office has opened public offices in full to its citizens. This has enhanced the credibility of the public domain to receive trusted information without breaching the demarcation line of secrecy, confidentiality, and privacy.

Civil society, media, and people at large know well the difference between public domain and private domain of information. For making a better civilized society, the privacy and confidentiality of an individual is to be maintained at the highest standard while enjoying openness and free flow of information for the interest of the society.

The writer is a former Senior Secretary and currently teaching as an Adjunct Faculty at the Bangladesh Institute of Governance and Management (BIGM)”. He can be contacted at s22arefin@gmail.com