Confidentiality is a common law idea – there’s no regulator or confidentiality police. The courts developed it, honed it with some important decisions and if anyone wants to enforce their confidentiality rights, it’s the courts they have to turn to. But what is confidentiality? How do you establish a duty of confidentiality. And most importantly, what are the implications when personal data is also confidential.

SPOILER ALERT: it’s actually quite straightforward, and with some care and attention, it’s not too difficult to get it all nailed down. I’ll cover what the duty of confidentiality is, key cases that show how it works, and how the overlap between confidentiality and data protection works.