Confidentiality question

[rolco]

I recently took a w2 position with a lending institution to provide in-house commercial appraisals for them. I have 20 years worth of workfiles, reports, and a comparable database stored on an external hard drive that I regularly access when developing and preparing appraisal reports. Their IT department has reservations about me plugging this external hard drive into their network. Their solution is to create a directory within their cloud that only I would have access to. They're asking me to upload all of my files to this cloud directory. I would assume they (IT only)would have access to this directory since they're setting it up, but no one else within the institution would. Is there a confidentiality issue by doing this? If so what is the solution?

Thanks for your input.

 

[Meandering]

You are responsible for the confidentiality of your reports. Nobody else, not your clients in the past, not your employers in the future. Bring a laptop to read your files on, not connected to their network.

 

[rolco]

Thanks for the reply. If it was as simple as just reading the info in the files than it would not be a big deal. But I pull data from the reports; Excel sheets, zoning maps, etc from the workfile of prior reports, and need to access this info regularly. I'm sure I'm not the first person in this position so was hoping to hear some ideas for a possible workaround.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Thanks for the reply. If it was as simple as just reading the info in the files than it would not be a big deal. But I pull data from the reports; Excel sheets, zoning maps, etc from the workfile of prior reports, and need to access this info regularly. I'm sure I'm not the first person in this position so was hoping to hear some ideas for a possible workaround.

Basically, I think you could try to get the IT department to sign a confidentiality agreement to not disclose what they can access and to erase it if you change jobs.

 

[Tiffany Gibbons]

I recently took a w2 position with a lending institution to provide in-house commercial appraisals for them. I have 20 years worth of workfiles, reports, and a comparable database stored on an external hard drive that I regularly access when developing and preparing appraisal reports. Their IT department has reservations about me plugging this external hard drive into their network. Their solution is to create a directory within their cloud that only I would have access to. They're asking me to upload all of my files to this cloud directory. I would assume they (IT only)would have access to this directory since they're setting it up, but no one else within the institution would. Is there a confidentiality issue by doing this? If so what is the solution?

Thanks for your input.

No way.

 

[rolco]

Thanks Terrel. I will give that some thought.

Is this any different than when residential appraisers store their reports and workfiles on the cloud that alamode provides?

 

[KHS445]

Thanks Terrel. I will give that some thought.

Is this any different than when residential appraisers store their reports and workfiles on the cloud that alamode provides?

Potentially yes. You may have confidential information regarding prior clients and properties that were prepared for your current employer's competition. Could be a real issue if someone were able to access this information, confidentiality agreements or not.

I like the laptop idea. Just email the information you need to yourself and then cut and paste it into the report you are working on. An additional step, but only takes a minute or two. Besides you are a W-2 employee, so you are getting paid to make the transfer and my guess is by accessing information from your old reports you are saving your employer time and resources, so they still come out ahead.

 

[rolco]

Potentially yes. You may have confidential information regarding prior clients and properties that were prepared for your current employer's competition. Could be a real issue if someone were able to access this information, confidentiality agreements or not.

I like the laptop idea. Just email the information you need to yourself and then cut and paste it into the report you are working on. An additional step, but only takes a minute or two. Besides you are a W-2 employee, so you are getting paid to make the transfer and my guess is by accessing information from your old reports you are saving your employer time and resources, so they still come out ahead.

Thanks. And yes that was exactly my concern. I do have confidential information from their competition as well as people's personal and corporate tax returns, etc. stored in my workfiles. The appeal in hiring me as an employee was my 21 years of knowledge, resources and database. So explaining to them that I need this library of information to be efficient, but at the same time not violate confidentiality ethics, doesn't leave very many options for either party. Working on my own personal Network and then emailing finished reports to their database seems to be the most practical solution. Hopefully they will be on board with it.

 

[CGinMN]

Is this any different than when residential appraisers store their reports and workfiles on the cloud that alamode provides?

Probably not. Every appraiser using alamode is violating confidentiality. Per their user agreement, “ALM may retain and use information collected in your use of the Service”