If you’ve lived long enough, there’s a good chance you’ve seen one of them: a confidentiality agreement. Whether you’re signing one for a work project or because of a personal issue with another person, they can be pretty daunting. The extensive amount of fine print and “legalese” can be tough for anyone not well-acquainted with the law to tackle.

But that’s no excuse for not reading the fine print: in fact, it’s imperative that you do so especially if you’re not familiar with these types of documents. In this article, we’ll take a look at the ins and outs of a typical confidentiality agreement and tell you what you can expect – and what not to expect.

The more you know about these confidentiality agreements, the more you’ll see just why you should read everything you sign.

The Goals of Confidentiality Agreements

Most confidentiality agreements (also known as non-disclosure agreements) are written with a few goals in mind:

• To give one of the parties legal recourse if you should make any of their trade secrets – or any information protected under the agreement, for that matter – public knowledge. Essentially, they can’t stop you from doing this, but having a confidentiality agreement in place gives them grounds for legal action for those “just in case” scenarios.
• To protect business information from competitors. In some cases, these clauses can make many confidentiality agreements into de facto (though not official) non-compete agreements. Protecting one company’s information from another is standard practice in a number of business fields, so if you’re being urged to sign one at the start of a new job or project, remember that this is a normal procedure.

The ultimate goal of the confidentiality agreement, of course, is obvious: to protect information. But what if there’s something that you notice, as you read the confidentiality agreement, that seems out of place?

Unexpected Findings in a Confidentiality Agreement

This is why you don’t want to skim over a confidentiality agreement – or anything else you sign – simply because you think the agreement is a matter of routine: sometimes, extra “clauses” can be put into a confidentiality agreement that you simply don’t agree with.

For example, let’s say you’re beginning work at a new company, and they have you sign a Non-Disclosure or Confidentiality Agreement. Not a big deal, right? Most companies will have you sign this kind of form in order to protect this information.

But what if there’s a section in that agreement that deals with your capacity to work at other companies within the same field? Then the confidentiality agreement is crossing the barrier of its normal template into sketchy territory – you’ll want to bring it up with someone before you sign it.

And remember: just because someone tells you “that’s ok, sign it anyway” doesn’t mean that signing the document is suddenly okay. Signing the document is signing the document, no matter what they say. So be sure to read each confidentiality agreement in full, and make sure they look like the ones you find at FindLegalForms.com.

Many of us are quick to make lawyer jokes in this day and age, but when it comes to protecting ourselves, our assets, our property, and our confidential information - we suddenly realize how important lawyers can be. Or, at the very least, the forms that they help draft up! These forms, like confidentiality forms, can be integral to making sure we maintain control over what we have the rights to control. And when it comes to the control of information, maintaining confidentiality was never so difficult as it is during the Information Age.

That’s why confidentiality forms can be so vital to making sure we stay protected, well-covered legally, and that the information we want guarded stays guarded. And if we look at things from the other end of the spectrum, understanding just how weighty confidentiality agreements can be will be important, because we never want to violate confidentiality once we’ve signed an agreement saying we wouldn’t. Here’s why confidentiality forms can be so important - and how the language makes it so.

First, it’s important to understand that confidentiality agreements can have a wide range of uses. For example, someone can require that you sign a confidentiality agreement simply when they ask you for financial advice - although this type of person can usually be a bit overprotective of their assets, you’ll also find that this over-protectiveness covers them well when it comes to the legal aspect of their property. Other situations that might call for confidentiality forms can include business transactions, medical arrangements, and other areas that would be considered vital to living our lives.

But why confidentiality forms? Can’t most individual simply be trusted with the information they’re presented? Sure, many people can indeed be trusted with information - but there’s an old saying that goes “Trust...but verify.” Verifying that people can’t break confidentiality without also breaking the terms of a contract is a way to make sure that people adhere to the legally-binding aspect of your relationship with them, and could entitle you to file a lawsuit in certain cases. It’s important to remember just how important information is this day and age, especially when knowing a few passwords or numbers can be enough to gain access to all of your financial accounts online.

A confidentiality form will include, typically, a number of provisions. First, it’s important to define which information is confidential - you might know one thing about a person that you can’t tell because of confidentiality, but that doesn’t mean you can’t share other information that wasn’t included in the agreement. There will also be terms and conditions that the person who is granted access to confidential information must meet as per the defined terms in the contract. Each confidentiality agreement is different, but generally you can expect these provisions to appear.

If you’re asked to sign a confidentiality agreement, make sure that you read it in full to know what you’re signing. And if you’ve never been sure about sharing information, perhaps it’s time you start handing out a few confidentiality agreements of your own.