Kira is not allowed to talk about a business trip that made Texas (United States) in 2019, where he says that a co -worker was drugged and raped her.When he woke up the next morning, he found his credit card on the bathroom floor of his own hotel room, his broken underwear and his bruised body.
Kira canceled the second stage of his trip and flew home, where he called his boss to describe what happened.His superior warned human resources, which unleashed a chain events that made Kira continue working on the billionaire technological company in which she was a contract manager.
At the end of a controversial legal mediation in later months, Kira signed an agreement that forced her to resign.In exchange for almost a year of his salary, Kira is obliged to remain silent under threat of strong economic sanctions if his story ever tells.
Kira felt pressured to sign the agreement by her lawyers, who according to her, she was more fortunate than most women in her situation.
"It was the most revealing experience that I think I'm going to have in my life," says Kira.Business Insider has changed its real name to protect your identity."They basically told me that it would be very silly if I didn't sign that".
Kira's experience can be extreme, but the strict conditions of confidentiality of the agreement she signed are incredibly common.Every day, thousands of people sign confidentiality contracts when they start a job or leave their post.Most of the time, especially in workers who begin a new job, these agreements are a mere more document in the first day of work paper mountain.
But contracts can have many more consequences that people can imagine.
Confidentiality agreements directly attack the heart of one of the most fundamental individual freedoms in the United States, limiting what someone can talk.However, although they have extended throughout the corporate world in the course of a few decades, the vertiginous scope and legality that these contracts have received little study.
In Silicon Valley (California, United States), the culture of secrecy that companies have justified for a long time in the name of the protection of innovation has become a generalized restriction that often prevents workers from talking about anything;From pregnant management errors to cases of misconduct and abuse in the work space.
"It enrages me even the deepest of me," Kira acknowledges.And he adds: "These companies are able to silence people and move on to something else".
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Kira's confidentiality agreement stipulates that, in response to questions about the status of her allegations, she can only say: "I can't talk about it" or "I would prefer not to talk about the matter".
However, Kira explains that she was forced to speak "to make sure that other women do not go through this".Business Insider has verified the story of Kira with people who have direct knowledge of what happened, together with documents of their legal case and police records.
To understand how confidentiality agreements have become the backbone of the culture of Silicon Valley, Business Insider has reviewed 36 agreements shared by employees of the technological sector of companies that range from the giants of Fortune 500 such as Facebook, Google andApple to small startups.Together, they offer one the most complete analyzes until the date of these used contracts.The documents show how restrictive the forced silence has become, both in the agreements signed when an employee begins to work and in the decoupling agreements and Kira.
Among the most important findings of the investigation are several points:
The scope and depth of these contracts stunned the academic experts and the labor lawyers consulted for this story.
"What should be protected are commercial secrets; everything else is ridiculous," says Peter Rukin, one of the 6 Labor Lawyers who reviewed unidentified fragments of the confidentiality agreements collected for this report.The lawyer argues that "the information about employees cannot be a commercial secret.Much of what is here nourishes fear and clandestinity.When these clauses come to light, they crumble ".
To the language of the confidentiality agreements themselves is usually treated by companies as a well -saved secret.Business Insider has asked 50 of the world's largest technology companies in the world of non -dissemination and non -discredit clauses.All, except two, refused to share the text template that they demand to sign their employees.Only five of the companies have answered questions about their agreements.
But while the bills in a handful of US states are being closely followed by defenders of workers and executives of companies with equal interest, even basic data on the scope and incidence of confidentiality agreements are still difficultto obtain.Academic experts affirm that secrecy is due to the fact that the true reach of infractions in the workplace is a mystery.
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Many of the agreements seen are not really applicable, but they never come to trial.Companies are able to enforce them through private media, "says Jodi Short, a teacher at the Hastings Law School in San Francisco (California, United States), which has studied confidentiality agreements.Short believes that the threat of going to courts is already enough to silence the majority of employees.And of the few who take legal actions, according to the teacher, many can only submit claims through mandatory arbitration, a process that also involved in secrecy.
For companies "there are no consequences in the use of these agreements," says Short, who also considers that companies "always win" with this.
"Why did you leave your last job?"
The origin of the confidentiality agreements is the subject of debate, with some who date back to Thomas Edison's time, when the pioneer of electricity and prolific inventor used contracts to protect intellectual property.
David Hoffman's professor at the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania (United States) considers "ironic" that the "dissemination of confidentiality contracts in Silicon Valley took off when digital technology made its signature easier".
"From the end of the 90s', when it became easier to write electronic contracts and obtain the consent by pressing 'I agree', the companies began to write more contracts and longer," says Hoffman, adding that inGeneral agreements became more restrictive and less favorable for employees.
"At the same time, Silicon Valley won the reputation of being a place where workers released with another company to another, thanks to the refusal of the Californian courts to enforce the so -called non -competence agreements.This approach, that other states of the country have since imitated, it is considered that it has encouraged the innovation for which the technology industry is recognized.But it also had the unwanted consequence of helping the growth of confidentiality agreements, "says Hoffman.
"As (Silicon) Valley matured, risk capital companies and investors Ángeles wanted to maintain a greater amount of intellectual property of the startup in order to monetize it," says Hoffman.The teacher explains that it was then that "his lawyers began using confidentiality agreement as a substitute for those of non -competence".
Although confidentiality contracts are usually limited to intellectual property, in practice they have become tools for companies to regulate all kinds of information, regardless of whether it is a commercial secret.
Today, there are two types of confidentiality agreements: of non -dissemination and non -discredit.Non -dissemination usually limit what someone can say about their work and who, while a non -discredit agreement restricts workers to describe their company or their commercial partners negatively;an intricate tightrope that is difficult to define.
Often, non -dissemination and non -discredit agreements go hand in hand.For example, all decoupling contracts reviewed by Business Insider for this report contain non -dissemination and non -discredit clauses.The usual use of these clauses can limit the way in which employees express their political opinions or movements in their professional career.
"You accept that you will not make any derogatory or negative statement (in an oral, written or anyway, included through a blog or any other way via the Internet), directly or indirectly, about the company or any other related part,"Pray a non -discredit clause in the disconnection agreement of an employee of a startup specialized in intellectual property.
The employee who signed that agreement left the company last year after knowing that the company would seek to do business with the federal government to use its technology along the border between the United States and Mexico, something that he opposed ideologically.When he protested by the agreement, the worker said that his performance evaluations were affected.Instead of remaining in the company, he chose to sign a confidentiality agreement as part of a compensation package.
Since then, the old employee points out that his confidentiality agreement has caused uncomfortable moments during work interviews."I had to devise an answer to 'Why did he leave his latest job?'" He says."Most of the time I broke my confidentiality agreement because it was not a very satisfactory answer to say 'I can't talk about it".
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Other workers who have talked to Business Insider were not sure what they could and could not say without fear of violating the terms in their contract.Given the harsh repercussions of the violation of many of the confidentiality agreements, it is easy to understand why employees can sin prevented.
For example, in the Apple workers' agreement, they accept "that Apple will have the right to request and obtain immediate precautionary measures to enforce the obligations derived from this agreement, in addition to any other right and appeal that may have".
An agreement of non -dissemination of Google was just as sharp: "During and after my work on Google, I will keep all Google's confidential information in strict confidentiality and security.I understand that breach of this section 2 can lead to disciplinary measures, including being dismissal or taking legal actions ".
Keep the records of a key
The vast majority of non -dissemination and non -discredit agreements have never come to trial.That is part that makes the ongoing litigation of the Fair Employment and Housing Department of California (DFEH) against the Riot Games Video Game Development Company is so unusual.Experts consulted about the case of discrimination for gender reasons believe that it is an extreme example of the limits to which the technological companies reach to use employee agreements to suppress certain information and to keep those same agreement secretly.
The case began in 2018 when old and current employees of Riot Games filed a law.The case became a collective claim and, in 2019, DFEH lawyers intervened to force Riot Games to publish the workers' salary data.
Riot Games, developer of the popular video game League of Legends has repeated.Riot Games said in a judicial presentation that they contain "sensitive commercial information".
"If this information was made public, it would allow Riot's competitors to evaluate the company's commercial strategy, particularly in terms of remuneration and benefits of their employees, and allow them to adapt their own contracting and retention strategies to compete to competeMore effectively against Riot, "said a company's human resources executive in a recent statement.
At the beginning of the case, Riot Games told their workers that they could not speak with government researchers about their work in the company unless they received a citation, according to DFEH judicial archives;However, the company's lawyers opposed this statement by saying that "the opposite is the truth" and that the company "has repeatedly communicated to their employees can speak with the DFED and that they would not suffer any reprisals for it".Ultimately, a judge failed in favor of the State of California and ordered Riot Games to notify their workers who signed the agreements that, in fact, are authorized to speak with the investigators.But the episode shows to what extent the workers can be intimidated by their superiors to renounce their rights.
In a survey among users last summer by Blind, a popular anonymous forum, and published by protocol, almost 40% of the workers of the technological sector who declared having signed confidentiality agreements in their work considered that the agreement prevented themof the "injustices in the workplace".Something that does not occur in many states.In California, misconduct in the workplace is communicated to DFEH.
In order to guarantee that the complainants are not improperly threatened, the DFEH asks the workers who report on incidents if their superiors made them sign a confidentiality agreement.If the DFEH reviews this contract and considers that it goes too far, the agency staff gets in touch with the entrepreneur.
But measuring the frequency with which the DFEH opposes the overreach of confidentiality agreements is impossible.The agency refused to reveal even the basic metadata on their actions when Business Insider requested it under the Public Registries Law of California.The agency's lawyers said doing so "would increase the risk of an attack" to the institution's computer infrastructure.
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It is one of the many reasons, including the mosaic of state laws that regulate employment, for which the compression of the public about the confidentiality agreements remains opaque and the abuses of the contracts usually go unnoticed.
"No more times silenced"
The former Pinterest Ifeoma Ozoma worker has become the face of the effort to limit the scope of these agreements in the technology industry.Last year, Ozoma made public the allegations of racism and discrimination that, according to her, suffered in the company.
"The use of confidentiality agreement by technology companies has shot with layoffs during pandemic," says Ozoma.In his opinion, in those cases "you will accept any shit that they offer you...Because you have no choice ".
Adria Malcolm.
Some of these contracts make victims of abuse in work space afraid of talking about their experience.Finding out what they can and what they cannot say can mean paying thousands of dollars to a Labor Lawyer.
"No one should have to pay a lawyer to advise him on what he can tell a relative about the reasons why he left his last job," Ozoma believes.
Ozoma co -matocinated the bill.
If the project becomes law, Kira's contract is likely to be invalidated.
Some companies are making changes proactively.The General Director of Expensify, David Barrett, explained in early July that the company would adopt the format of the 'no more silences' law that explicitly allows employees to talk about the conduct in the workplace they consider illegal.Others, such as Facebook and Google, reported that they are changing the format of their confidentiality agreement and releasing the employees of mandatory arbitration, respectively.
But most companies are not even willing to share the standard text that force their employees to sign.
In addition to receiving and reviewing copies of 36 confidentiality agreements from different workers, Business Insider has requested separately to the companies with the highest value in Silicon Valley to share their confidentiality agreements.Business Insider has contacted 25 of the largest technological ones that are quoted in the stock market for their stock market capitalization and with 25 startups with large assessments.Almost two thirds of companies have not responded to requests, while a dozen of them has refused to answer any questions about the scope of their agreements.
The remaining five companies (10% of those contacted) have facilitated their confidentiality agreements or answered some questions about them.
None of them wanted to say if the workers who refused to sign the confidentiality contract were finally hired.And none of the companies has facilitated the format used as the basis in the employee decoupling agreements.
"A matter of reprisals"
Business Insider's analysis on confidentiality agreements occurs at a time of great tension in labor legislation.Many experts expect the protections of workers to be extended under the mandate of President Joe Biden, which this month issued an executive order in which he asked the Federal Commerce Commission to limit the scope of the non -competence clauses, provisions that usuallyGo hand in hand with non -dissemination and non -discredit agreements.
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As legislators examine the labor confidentiality agreements carefully, some people are taking more steps to solve the problems they see in these contracts.
Ariella Steinhorn and Amber Scorah, both public relations exejeative, have recently created Lions, a public relations firm dedicated to helping complainants to overcome high -risk situations that often entails the public breakdown of a confidentiality agreement.
The company aims to contact workers with lawyers who can help them review their confidentiality agreements and with journalists who can tell their stories.None of the employees who participated in this report were sent from lions.
"It's really scary; you're completely alone out there," says Steinhorn.
"Most cases of people who report depend on whether a company is willing to withstand the potential damage to its reputation for going after a former ex -worker with a condemnatory history they have shared," says Steinhorn.The public relations expert clarifies that "in the technological sector there is a great concern for reprisals and how the company applies".
Steinhorn, Scorah and Ozoma also got involved in the collective effort that Ozoma is captaining to publish a manual for technological sector workers.The project is funded by Omidyar Red and will include a glossary of terms that usually appear in the confidentiality agreements, as well as answers to frequent questions about how to talk to government lawyers or researchers, among other things.
"You have to accept it"
For a former Los Angeles Technical Support Engineer (California, United States) who shared his confidentiality agreement with Business Insider, the reform does not arrive on time.
The woman, whose Business Insider identity maintains in anonymity, worked for a technology company in the consumer fraud department, where she was usually subject to harassment by the clients they called.Customers "sent us photos of penises and told me disgusting things on the phone," reveals the extrabajadora, adding that it was not allowed to hang users because it would be reflected as a bad performance evaluation, so "I had to accept it".
After a disturbing incident, in which someone appeared in the office in person asking to see her, the woman asked her superior to reallocate her to another job that did not involve responding to customer calls.His request was denied and stopped going to the office in person.Shortly after they fired her.
The strict confidentiality contract that he signed with his company in exchange for two months of compensation forbids him to talk about his passage through the company with anyone except for his "close family, lawyer, accounting, commercial advisors or any governmental tax authority".This means that in work interviews you cannot talk about the scope of your work or the circumstances surrounding your departure.
Your boss, meanwhile, promised to write a letter of recommendation, according to her.However, he left the company shortly after she was fired.
"At the moment I left, everything was deleted," she says, listing the data that the company kept on the amount of money she recovered in cases of fraud, data that is now unable to express to possible new contracting.Recognize that, a few days, you feel that you should leave your sector to find a job.
Meanwhile, she closely follows the legislation that would limit the scope of secrecy in the disconnection agreements.
Money gives companies "the power to crush freedom of expression," says the woman.And he adds: "People should never have a gag for life".
Rosalie Chan and Kylie Robison contributed to the report.
The Brechner Center for Freedom of Information provided financial support for the beginning of this story last year through its new scholarship to inform about government and business secret.
