Workplace Policy on Sharing Photos of the Work Product

Sharing workplace photos of ongoing work products could violate your company's internal policies regarding confidentiality and intellectual property rights. If you share photographs of pending patent drawings, architectural models or drawings or contracts, you might be diminishing the company's potential economic value of these privileged items. In addition to risking your job, by violating your company's intellectual property rights, your company might sue you for divulging proprietary information.

Trade Secrets

Trade secrets are a variety of intellectual property rights that many companies have to their patented inventions. An example of a trade secret are the ingredients used to make Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola Co. has kept its recipe for its beverages secret, which has helped it master the market for carbonated soft drinks. As the leading manufacturer of carbonated soft drinks, Coca-Cola’s company policies require its employees to keep its trade secrets confidential. Employees who violate its company policies risk automatic firing and legal repercussions.

Confidentiality Agreements

Most likely, if your company required you to sign a confidentiality agreement promising to keep its products confidential, you have violated the agreement by taking photos and disseminating them. If you took photos but did not disseminate them, you might not have violated your company's confidentiality agreement, depending on the terms of your company's confidentiality agreement. A company's confidentiality agreement usually covers ongoing legal work products, patented inventions and trade secrets. Your company's legal recourse depends on the associated economic value of your violation. For instance, if you took photos of a product that your company did not develop or create, your company might not be able to sue you for loss of profits or economic damages.

Permissible Sharing

Although you might ethically violate your duty to keep your employer's work activities confidential, the violation might not equal a legal violation that triggers legal repercussions. Furthermore, if you shared your company's work products by taking photos without your employer's permission, you might have had a legal basis for doing so. For example, if you took photos of your company's work product to report an unsafe working condition pursuant to your occupational rights to a safe working environment, you might be able to seek legal protection pursuant to your federal whistle-blowing rights. An example of permissible use of confidential work product photos is your right to report hazardous working conditions to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Best Practices

In any business relationship, you owe your employer a duty of confidentiality. This duty requires you to treat the specifics of your daily work activities confidentially. Before you take photos of your company's proprietary work product developments, you should obtain written permission from your employer allowing you to take photos.