What does confidentiality typically refer to in a professional context?

Confidentiality in a professional context primarily refers to the obligation to keep personal information private. This principle is crucial in fields such as healthcare, education, and therapy, where sensitive information about individuals must be protected to maintain trust and integrity in the professional relationship. By keeping personal information confidential, professionals uphold ethical standards and legal requirements, ensuring that individuals’ rights to privacy are respected.

While sharing information with colleagues can be necessary in some cases, it typically comes with the requirement that such sharing must be justified, relevant, and done with the individual's consent to maintain confidentiality. Discussing details only in meetings may provide a measure of privacy, but it does not fully address the broader scope of confidentiality, which focuses on protecting individual information regardless of the context. Thus, the concept of confidentiality is best encapsulated by the idea of keeping personal information private.