Meaning & use
confidentiality breach
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountable
A situation in which private information that was meant to stay secret is shared with someone who should not have it.
Grammar: Countable: you can talk about a breach, several breaches, or the breach of a specific agreement.
Patterns
- a confidentiality breach of something
- commit a confidentiality breach
- a serious/major confidentiality breach
The hospital was fined after a confidentiality breach exposed patients' records.
Sharing that email with a journalist amounted to a confidentiality breach.
The company introduced new rules to prevent any future confidentiality breach.
Word forms
| plural | confidentiality breaches |
|---|
Common combinations
- a serious confidentiality breach
- Losing the laptop was a serious confidentiality breach.
- commit a confidentiality breach
- An employee who commits a confidentiality breach may be dismissed.
- alleged confidentiality breach
- The firm is investigating an alleged confidentiality breach.
- confidentiality breach claim
- She filed a confidentiality breach claim against her former employer.
Synonyms and how they differ
- data breach
- Usually refers to a security failure where information is stolen or leaked, often by hackers, rather than a broken promise of secrecy.
- leak
- Informal and often suggests information deliberately passed to the media; a confidentiality breach is the broader legal or professional term.
Word family
- confidential adjective
- meant to be kept secret between a limited number of people
- confidentiality noun
- the duty or state of keeping information secret
- breach noun
- an act of breaking a law, rule, or agreement
Commonly confused: confidentiality breach or security breach?
confidentiality breach vs security breach
A security breach is about someone getting into a system or place without permission; a confidentiality breach is about secret information being shared.
Practice
The lawyer was disciplined for a confidentiality breach after she ___ details of the settlement.
Choose one answer.
'Revealed' means she made the secret details known, which is exactly what a confidentiality breach involves. 'Concealed' and 'protected' describe keeping information secret, the opposite of a breach.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “confidentiality breach”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.