I. Question Presented: Whether or not financial information can be rightfully redacted within the confines of OPRA? (I.e. pricing information/value of contract overall) II. Statement of Facts: Losing bidders have come and requested that University Hospital releases to them specific documents that may carry sensitive information. Certain information that is contained within the requested documents may give a party an unfair competitive advantage. Therefore, as to protect bidders, a determination must be made regarding what type of information can be redacted within the scope of OPRA. III. The plain language of OPRA: The Open Public Records Act guarantees the access to public records in the state of New Jersey. However, along …show more content…
“Nothing in this act shall be construed to require the disclosure of: 14(j). Information which, if disclosed, would frustrate government procurement or give an advantage to any person proposing to enter into a contract or agreement with an agency including information involved in the collective bargaining process. 14(n). Trade secrets or confidential commercial and financial information obtained, upon request, from a person.” In support of the disclosure restrictions found in OPRA is the Government Records Council. The Government Records Council provides an expanded list of twenty-five (25) disclosure exemptions. The reason for the expanded list of exemptions is because other state and federal statutes govern the disclosure of specific material outside of OPRA. Pursuant to the relevant disclosure exemptions, N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1.1 specifies the following materials as exempt from disclosure: “trade secrets and proprietary commercial or financial information obtained from any source.” And “information which, if disclosed, would give an advantage to competitors or bidders.” Any information which if disclosed would lead to trade secrets becoming compromised or give an advantage to competitors or bidders must be …show more content…
They defined trade secrets as a “compilation of information which is used in one’s business, and which gives him an opportunity to obtain an advantage over competitors who do not know or use it.”[3] Furthermore, other than the definition, the court took into account certain considerations that should be used in deciding what information should be regarded as a trade secret. Those considerations include how much effort was used to protect the information, the information’s value to the owner and competitor, the amount of effort used to develop the information, and how easy or difficult the information can be replicated.[4] For additional clarification, the court also provided the definition found in the restatement third, unfair competition sub 39 which defines trade secrets as “information that can be used in the operation of a business or other enterprise and that is sufficiently valuable and secret to afford a potential economic advantage over others.”[5] In support, the court in Rousseau looked at Trump’s Castle Assocs., to help expand their understanding of ‘trade secrets’. The court in Trump’s Castle held that trade secrets can include “pricing and marketing techniques.”[6] By attaching definitions to these terms, the court in Rousseau essentially set out to create a uniform standard for OPRA as to prevent the divulgement of protected
Confidentiality has several different levels that include employee, management, and business information. Employee data includes personal identifying information, disability and medical information, etc. Keeping this material confidential is important because the information could lead to criminal activity to include fraud or discrimination; this can result in decreased productivity and affect employee morale. Management information covers impending layoffs, terminations, workplace investigation of employee misconduct, etc. It should go without saying that sensitive data should only be available to management. Lastly, the business portion includes business plans, company forecasts, and special ingredients/recipes, information that would not be readily available to competitors. Employees and managers should receive training on how to properly handle confidential information (Jules Halpern Associates, LLC,
The flip side of the signing a confidentiality document under HIPAA policy healthcare officials many times has been frustrated because bounds they can’t cross. Many times family or friends who aren’t authorizes obtains valuable medical information are coming all hours of the day to ask for critical medical reason, the nurses, physicians and others officials bid my law not to get out information on the telephone, or in personal if the individual or individuals name aren’t on the privacy document. Having a ...
Arthur, G. L., & Swanson, C. D. (1993). Confidentiality and privileged communication. The ACA legal
The government must prove that the records are relevant and helpful in capturing a target first, but essentially the government can make a company give them private information.
6. Should individuals and organizations with access to the databases be identified to the patient
The bill requires the FAA to maintain a records data base only for hiring purposes. Information in the data base should include the pilot’s license, medical certificates, aircraft ratings, check rides, notices of disapproval, and other flight proficiency tests, and state motor veh...
FERPA also allows education and treatment records to be shared with third parties without consent, so long as, the person receiving the information ...
Similarly some information are kept from being publicized to the whole world by the government. Wikileaks has done otherwise: material that they disclosed to the world was sensitive material that belonged to the g...
There are two types of transparencies: Regulatory transparency which incorporates controls on regulatory discretion, counsel with invested individuals and advance procedures that are clear, unsurprising and reliable. Information transparency is the giving of precise and “timely statistical data” as well as convenient warning of continuous policy discussions. ("Critical perspectives on international business: Vol 5, No 3", 2016) It needs to be transparent on how it spends the publics tax money and how they conduct their business. In 2012 South Africa was positioned second out of an aggregate of 94 countries for the transparency of its financial plan, however, in the 2015 review, South Africa was positioned third. ("South Africa Overview", 2016) The public and the business community need to have regulatory and information transparency so they can understand and make a precise evaluation of their rights and commitments. However, the final objective of the public sector transparency needs to make government policies reasonable and unsurprising to diminish the instability and expenses of “conducting public and private business.” ("Critical perspectives on international business: Vol 5, No 3", 2016) Transparency in the Private sector is the extent to which organizations customarily reveal substantial information about their financial condition and bookkeeping practices to “outsiders and the government in a reliable manner.” ("Critical perspectives on international business: Vol 5, No 3", 2016) Valuable numeric reporting supports the general productivity of the business sector and has the long‐term impact of lessening the expense of capital for companies. Incorrect or conflicting numeric reports brings down the plausibility of the private sector and discourage foreign contribution and cross‐border
We make sure all information is secure, preventing the risk of leaking into the public. Just like we keep all information confidential for our clients we keep all information from our partners confidential as well. If at any case a situation arises, we ask all our partners to sign a nondisclosure agreement approved by our legal department.
Information may be shared with service providers we have retained to perform services on our behalf, however these service providers are not authorized to use or disclose the information except as necessary to perform services on our behalf or to comply with legal requirements.
I would feel compelled to find out more about this non-discloser agreement to see what sort of information I could share. I would check the legality of not disclosing this information. If I found out that a person could get into legal trouble personally I would decide to resign from the position. I could get into legal trouble either way then if I did or did not disclose. The company could take a lawsuit out on you for not following the non-discloser agreement and on the reverse side you could get into trouble from the
Are there situations in which it is best to try to keep a lid on such information?
The idea of privacy has slowly been diminishing over these past few generations. In a time where cavemen existed, privacy was cherished. The Privacy Act of 1974 was created for individuals who were concerned about their privacy rights when computerized databases were developed. It restricted agencies from sharing individual’s information with third parties. However, the Act did not protect all databases due to the fact that “databases” does not have a set stone definition (“EPIC”). In fact, a good example of an exception to this Act would be the Prince George’s County Government website. Located under the “Criminal Division” of this website you will find a link that will direct you to a Maryland Judiciary Case Search. On the redirected link the website states “This website provides public access to the case records of the Maryland Judiciary. Information origination within the District Court system and the Circuit Court of Baltimore City is entered after the close of each court day, and is available online the following day” (“Maryland Judiciary Case Search”). This information can be accessed by anyone. We no longer have control over what is private; technology has access to it all.
...oice is to be careful with the information released to the public, forcing anyone who wishes harm to work for the information.