Difference Between Privacy and Confidentiality

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Every person wants some personal space in his/her life, because, one cannot share each and everything with others. In fact no one wants to talk about what’s going on in their personal life. Hence, a certain degree of privacy is every person’s need. Privacy is a state when a person is free from public interference while if we talk about Confidentiality, it speaks about a situation when important information is kept the secret between two individuals until the person to whom the information belongs permits to disclose it.

In short privacy is when someone remains undisturbed by the people, but confidentiality is when something is kept secret. To distinguish the given terms correctly is quite strenuous, as the meaning of the two, too nearly resembles. Here in this article, we have compiled the most important differences between privacy and confidentiality, have a look at it.

Comparison Chart

Basis for Comparison	Privacy	Confidentiality
Meaning	The state of being secluded is known as Privacy.	Confidentiality refers to the the situation when it is expected from someone that he will not divulge the information to any other person.
What is it?	It is the right to be let alone.	It is an agreement between the persons standing in fiduciary to maintain the secrecy of sensitive information and documents.
Concept	Limits the access of the public.	Prevents information and documents from unauthorized access.
Applies to	Individual	Information
Obligatory	No, it is the personal choice of an individual	Yes, when the information is professional and legal.
Disallowed	Everyone is disallowed from involving the personal affairs of an individual.	Only unauthorized persons are disallowed from using the information.

Definition of Privacy

Privacy is the state when an individual is free from public interruption and intrusion. The word privacy is derived from the word ‘private’ which means the role of the public is limited, so the term privacy refers to a condition where a person is apart from public attention and observation. It is the right of every individual to be left alone in his personal matters because everybody has his personal life. He can draw a boundary on the access of his information from the use of others.

Moreover, it is a human tendency to hide certain facts about himself or else people will use them against him.

Privacy is a matter of choice of an individual if he doesn’t want to disclose his / her matter in front of people. For example, It is quite logical that if a person wants to take a bath or change his clothes or he wants to have a personal conversation with someone he will seek some privacy because he does not want anybody’s interference in his private moments.

A good example of Internet privacy is here; you can set privacy on your social networking site account to limit the access of your personal stuff like who can see your stuff, profile picture, photos etc.

Definition of Confidentiality

Confidentiality refers to a state when it is intended or expected from someone to keep the information secret. The term confidentiality extracted from the word ‘confidence’ which means ‘trust.’ In this way, confidentiality is when it is entrusted that the information which is told in confidence to someone, will be kept secret from the reach of unauthorized people until the parties agree to uncover the information.

In Medical, Legal, and other professions, it is common that the information shared between client and solicitor or doctor and patient, will not be told to the third party. In the military, this term is used scores of times that only authorized officers are allowed to access the confidential information. It prevents the access of sensitive information from being public.

Here is an example for you to understand confidentiality easily like your bank details like an account number or ATM pin or user id and password of any social networking site or an email account.

Key Differences Between Privacy and Confidentiality

The following are the major differences between privacy and confidentiality:

Privacy is a situation when a person is free from public interference. Confidentiality is a situation when information is kept secret from the reach of any other person.
Privacy talks about a person, but Confidentiality is about information.
Privacy restricts the public from accessing the personal details about a person, whereas Confidentiality protects the information from the range of unauthorised persons.
In privacy, everyone is disallowed from interfering in the personal matters of a person. Conversely, in confidentiality some specified and trustworthy people are allowed to have access to the information.
Privacy is at the voluntary; it is the choice of a person. In contrast to Confidentiality, it is compulsory if the relationship between parties is a fiduciary.
Privacy is a right. However, Confidentiality is an agreement.

Conclusion

Privacy and Confidentiality are the two terms which are commonly juxtaposed with each other. Privacy is about personal or private i.e. the range will be limited to yourself only while if we talk about confidentiality, it is professional. The range will be limited to the persons, to whom the individual have trust. There are only a few differences between the two terms, but Confidentiality is an advanced version of Privacy.