What to settle in the agreement
- Which information is confidential: code, plans, data and any other material covered by the agreement.
- Whether the team may name you or show the work: agree what, if anything, may appear in a portfolio.
- How that permission is applied: check page descriptions, search data and plain-text copies as well as visible text.
- Who checks before publication: a signed agreement still needs someone to apply it.
The UK Intellectual Property Office's NDA guidance explains why the permitted purpose and disclosure terms need to be agreed.
Our rule: protected client identities stay private
Much of our government, pharmaceutical and nonprofit work was built through a partner agency. Where permission to name a client has not been granted, we keep its identity off our public pages.
We name our partners. Protected client identities stay private, and we hold that line in two ways: a release check, and a rule about details.
A check, not a habit
A list of the names we may not publish sits in our code. Our release checks read the public pages listed in the sitemap and their plain-text copies. The check fails if a listed protected name appears.
It reads the built site, not the text we wrote. A name that arrives through a page's description, its data for search engines or its plain-text copy is checked alongside names in paragraphs. Until that check existed, the rule was held by nothing but care.
No detail that points to one client
A name is the obvious leak. A detail can be just as clear. A funding figure, a team size, a city or a named bank can narrow a description to one client. So can a product type that fits one drug.
So our public pages describe the work and keep the numbers, and leave out the detail that would identify the client. Further detail is shared only through the access review.
Where the detail lives
Some readers need the detail to judge the work. For them, the full story sits behind our access form. A person on our team reviews each request, and everyone who asks agrees to keep the contents confidential.
Five questions to ask before you sign
- Will you name us, or show our screens, anywhere? Get the answer in writing, whatever it is.
- How do you stop a name reaching your site by accident? A check beats a promise.
- Which details would identify us? Agree them, not only the name.
- Who can see the full case study, and what do they agree to first?
- What happens when the project ends? Confidentiality should outlast the contract.
A software development NDA is where confidentiality starts. The supplier's own website is where it is tested, every time they publish.
