Confidentiality¶
Core Idea¶
Confidentiality is a governed information relation in which an authorized holder may access protected information but is constrained in how it may use or disclose it. The obligation has a subject, protected content, permitted purposes, recipients, release conditions, exceptions, and breach consequences. Information is not universally public; a holder obtains legitimate access; a rule restricts downstream use or disclosure; and the restriction persists across transfer until release, expiry, or an authorized exception. Confidentiality therefore binds use after access.
Broad Use¶
Medicine, law, research, diplomacy, commerce, and system security preserve the same holder–information–purpose–disclosure relation. Institutions supply the rule, but the roles transfer intact.
Clarity¶
Secrecy can rely on nobody knowing the information. Privacy concerns control over a person or sphere. Encryption prevents unauthorized access but does not govern an authorized recipient's later disclosure. Anonymity hides identity rather than constraining information use.
Manages Complexity¶
The abstraction turns scattered cases into one role-based test: identify the required elements, test their relation, and reject the classification when a constitutive commitment is missing.
Abstract Reasoning¶
Use the structural signature rather than the label, then challenge the nearest counterexample. Public data protected only against alteration has an integrity requirement, not a confidentiality requirement.
Knowledge Transfer¶
Medicine, law, research, diplomacy, commerce, and system security preserve the same holder–information–purpose–disclosure relation. Institutions supply the rule, but the roles transfer intact.
Example¶
A case qualifies only when the definition and every load-bearing role remain present. Public data protected only against alteration has an integrity requirement, not a confidentiality requirement.
Relationships to Other Abstractions¶
Current abstraction Confidentiality Prime
Parents (1) — more general patterns this builds on
-
Confidentiality is a kind of Constraint Prime
Confidentiality is the information-use species of constraint, restricting an authorized holder's admissible disclosures and downstream actions.
Children (2) — more specific cases that build on this
-
Born secret Domain-specific is a kind of Confidentiality
Born Secret instantiates Confidentiality because it is a rule architecture for restricting information access, specialized by statutory subject-matter attachment from creation rather than only an official designation event.
-
Quantum key distribution Domain-specific is a kind of Confidentiality
The proposed strict upward parent is
prime:confidentiality.
Hierarchy path (1) — routes to 1 parentless root
- Confidentiality → Constraint
Not to Be Confused With¶
Secrecy can rely on nobody knowing the information. Privacy concerns control over a person or sphere. Encryption prevents unauthorized access but does not govern an authorized recipient's later disclosure. Anonymity hides identity rather than constraining information use.