In employment, an NDA usually appears as a confidentiality agreement or a clause within the employment contract. Unlike non-competes, NDAs are enforceable in nearly every country when drafted sensibly. They define what counts as confidential, what the recipient may do with it, and how long the obligations last.
Common Provisions
Effective NDAs define confidential information concretely rather than claiming everything, and they exclude public knowledge and information the person already held. Time limits should be realistic, since trade secrets can be protected indefinitely but general know-how cannot. Pairing the NDA with intellectual property assignment addresses ownership, which confidentiality alone does not. Signing before sharing any sensitive information, including during recruitment, closes an obvious gap.
Limits on NDAs
An NDA cannot silence legally protected disclosures. Whistleblowing, reports to regulators, and, in a growing number of countries, harassment disclosures all sit outside its reach. For international contractors, an NDA combined with IP assignment is particularly important, because default ownership rules vary sharply between countries.