The 21 Group has received a request to partly redact a blog comment because of a claimed breach of confidentiality. In this instance, we have agreed to do so, whilst pending legal clarification.
Confidentiality is context-dependent. There are legitimate, even necessary reasons to keep certain Human Resources (HR) matters private: protecting victims’ identities in instances of serious sexual assault, preventing the suborning of witnesses and complying with data-protection laws. Professional ethics reflect this: the code of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) requires safeguarding confidential and personal data. In practice, assuring some confidentiality (e.g. keeping details of complaints limited to need-to-know personnel) can encourage reporting. For minor matters, allowing resolution to remain private can sometimes be efficient and preserve morale.
However, confidentiality becomes problematic when it is overused (or — to use a word beloved of HR — weaponized). Secrecy must not be used as a default cover-up of wrongdoing. Confidentiality is ethically wrong if the aim is to push harassment or misconduct issues under the carpet. The Arbitration and Conciliation Advisory Service (ACAS) and CIPD stress that any confidentiality must explicitly exempt whistleblowing and unlawful acts, such as discrimination or victimisation. In general, after an HR investigation is over, there is limited need for full confidentiality.
A persistent problem is the use of confidentiality to obscure institutional failings, including within HR itself. This is common elsewhere as well. The instinct to invoke confidentiality to contain reputational damage is well established in public life. For example, Boris Johnson repeatedly argued that the Sue Grey Report into ‘Partygate’ during Covid lockdown should be “confidential” 😉
If employées do not trust the process – for example, if they suspect that a “confidential HR investigation‘ means “you can’t tell anyone about bad mistakes made by HR” – they may go straight to outsiders. The growing willingness of individuals at universities to approach the press is one clear sign of this breakdown.
Legally and ethically, the line is drawn at misconduct. Confidentiality should not cover unlawful or discriminatory acts. For instance, in consultation with the UK Parliament, CIPD warned that poor confidentiality practices may “camouflage inappropriate or discriminatory behaviour”. Likewise, the UK government’s Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) reforms target harassment and discrimination explicitly, while preserving NDAs use for genuine commercial secrets. When processes lack openness about outcomes, employees are more likely to perceive injustice. Protecting individuals’ privacy (e.g. not naming victims in sexual harassment cases) can sometimes be valid, but total secrecy undermines the trust and the fairness central to justice.
Confidentiality is a fair practice when used sparingly to protect privacy and due process, but it is often abused and then becomes the default shield for errors or misconduct. Practices perceived as “gagging” prompt anger and disengagement.
(Image is of the Bodlean Library, Oxford University. The file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Attribution: 23 dingen voor musea)
12 Comments
TheResearcher · 30 March 2026 at 12:43
I wonder what post is that 😅
In the unlikely event that it is my post, the managers of UCam are already aware that I sent the full documents to many parties, both internal and external to the University. Every time UCam tells me to be quiet, I talk more, but after many months, they still did not understand this fact. They are, of course, entitled to expel me from the University if they can, but that is their limit and it will not prevent me from talking after. Given the upcoming tribunal cases, and the substantial media attention they will gather, expelling a student because he does not accept being silent upon witnessing abuses by senior staff does not seem sensible but I guess that many in UCam still think that what is about to come can be covered up!
21percent.org · 30 March 2026 at 13:07
UCAM’s busy months in the Employment Tribunals begin on 7 April, with a week long Tribunal at Cambridge (on East Rd)
Ms A A Khan versus Cambridge University & the Press, SXD, DDA, RRD, DRB, BOC, WA
(SXD = Sex Discrimination, DDA = Disability Discrimination Act, RRD = Race Discrimination, DRB = Disability-Related Discrimination, BOC = Breach of Contract, WA = Wages Act, Unlawful Withholding of Wages)
uh-oh · 30 March 2026 at 17:17
What terrible timing to be named the UK’s top employer. Can only see two cases in last five years against Google or Microsoft but with Cambridge University that seems like the rate every other month.
SPARTACUS · 30 March 2026 at 15:00
UCam has totally lost it! RIP after >800 years! What a tragedy and a farse! In the meanwhile Lord Smith pretends all is well!
CommunityCamel · 30 March 2026 at 19:27
Meetings begin precisely on time, end early, and consist entirely of colleagues agreeing with one another in eloquent, light prose. Every proposal is insightful, every concern constructively received, and every action point completed before it is even written down. Committees exist, of course, but only as elegant formalities — brief, luminous gatherings where consensus emerges effortlessly.
Students are uniformly brilliant, endlessly curious, and somehow always perfectly prepared. Supervisions feel less like teaching and more like co-authoring groundbreaking papers between sips of excellent coffee that appears, unbidden, at exactly the right moment.
Meanwhile, the university’s systems function with near-mystical efficiency. Forms submit themselves. Funding applications anticipate reviewer comments and pre-emptively address them. IT issues resolve before they are noticed, occasionally accompanied by a polite apology.
In this world, HR processes are models of clarity and fairness, investigations are swift and universally trusted, and “confidentiality” exists only to protect and reassure — never to obscure. Institutional culture is not just healthy but radiant: collegial, transparent, and quietly heroic.
As dusk falls, you leave through the sunlit Old Schools, satisfied yet unburdened, already looking forward to tomorrow — when, naturally, everything will work just as well again.
That’s why working at Cambridge is top of the rankings!
TheResearcher · 30 March 2026 at 20:15
In that world, what happens to people who prefer to be honest?
scream · 30 March 2026 at 20:42
If you cannot complete a grievance in less than 2 months (not two or more years) and cannot assure a fair process then no one has a right to confidentiality
Unless you have a sunset clause that voids all confidentiality in the event of investigator misconduct or failure to complete investigation within 2 months :
Confidentiality = censorship
21percent.org · 30 March 2026 at 22:09
Agreed. It is a form of cruelty to insist complainants can’t divulge to others matters about their Grievance, if the investigation extends for > 2 months
Sybille · 30 March 2026 at 21:27
Can confidentiality bind third parties? I thought it only bound those who signed a contract. Anyone else can say what they like that’s free speech?
21percent.org · 30 March 2026 at 22:38
Confidentiality can bind third parties, if the third party knows (or is told) that the information is confidential.
But that can be over-ridden, if there is a public interest defence.
A professional lawyer may be able to comment further.
TheResearcher · 30 March 2026 at 22:25
I am not sure if people understand what happened here.
A given person wrote a “witness statement” about my abusive and “unreasonably persistent” behaviour for refusing to let go that she and others continue with their misconduct. I exposed myself, published her view about how abusive my behaviour is, and she thinks it must be confidential. If it is about my abusive behaviour, why can’t I publish it? The problem, she realized, is that many people could identify her even without putting a name in the story, and this “witness statement” will become much more interesting after she gets cross-examined in a few months by a King’s Counsel.
I have to say that these people are at a different level. They bully and harass others and if this was not enough, they then try to enforce silence throughout. She is lucky that I did not yet send the material to the JCRs and MCRs of colleges but she and her friends are really pushing it. Let’s see what will happen in the next coming days.
225 · 31 March 2026 at 00:46
Thank god this some of these insanities are finally reaching tribunal and everyone can speak what they know at last. We’ve all had enough of playing silly games at the behest of HR to cover their silly decisions.