I was reading a post in the Trade Secrets blog today in which Wells Fargo is suing a former employee for stealing trade secrets in a plot to strip the bank of nearly $143 million in business. Among all the other accusations, I want to focus on the stealing of trade secrets. It maybe that Wells Fargo had an audit trail of who was doing what with its confidential documents and was able to come to the conclusion that its trade secrets were stolen. It might even have Enterprise Rights Management installed which is all well and good. However, if your organisation does not have the right tools to lock down and track the use of confidential documents, do you really have a foot to stand on?

Organisations today need to employ endpoint security tools like data leakage prevention and enterprise rights management to ensure that their confidential documents stay within the business. Making the staff aware of a log that monitors the use of confidential data is in itself a deterrent to mishandling such information. I believe if you do not provide these tools, it is likely in the future courts will begin to throw cases out for which there is no solid evidence that trade secrets were stolen.

For example, a Formula 1 engineer that has worked with one team for a long while is likely to have assimilated a lot of a car’s technical design mentally without necessarily leaving with a single sheet of technical design. Now if the engineer is able to replicate the design of a core component at the new team she has just joined, does that mean she can be sued by her former team for stealing trade secrets? I don’t think so. The best you can do is siphon the part of her brain that holds such information, and I am sure even if she signed that into her contract, the law of the land trumps that of an F1 team.

The needs of the organisation should always supercede that of any individual. This means the rules binding the use of confidential data should apply to all; Oh! I mean everyone, because the fact that someone is high in the organisation does not mean they are not vulnerable to the temptations of using such information for personal gain. So take action today and lock down all your trade secrets as soon as possible and save your organisation from a legal battle in the courtroom.