Confidentialité, intimité, photocopiant

From Planipedia

Thanks to PlanPlus and WEA for sharing their material for this Best Practices Guide.

There are a number of practical measures that can be taken to assure that a client’s affairs remain confidential. They include:

1. Have each staff member sign a confidentiality agreement that makes breaking a client’s confidentiality grounds for dismissal.
2. Make it an office practice that all client files must be signed out of their respective hanging files.
3. Make it an office practice all client documents must be locked up overnight and cannot leave the office, except to be returned to a client’s home.
4. Make it an office practice never to send any important documents by regular postal service.
5. Make it an office practice that no photocopies of documents can be made without a specific purpose, such as to being able to return the client’s original will.
6. Limit access to files only to persons who are responsible to work on a file for a specific purpose.
7. Make it an office practice to refrain from use of client’s names in what could remotely be considered a public place, such as the reception area or office kitchen.
8. Make it a firm rule that all photocopies of old documents from a client’s files must be shredded. For a very reasonable cost (less than $25.) each desk can be provided with a shredder that goes over the top of a small re-cycling bin that sits next to the wastebasket. This will promote use of shredding any working notes or documents.