How do you share a confidential plan with outside advisers before it is announced?

A company plans to close two sites and move the work. Or a ministry drafts a change to a benefit before the minister announces it. Either way, the plan has to be worked on before anyone else knows.

A consultancy models the costs. A law firm checks the employment terms. The communications agency drafts the announcement. Another department, or the finance team of a sister company, checks the numbers. Each gets the papers by email or a shared folder. Some print them. A few forward them to a colleague who joins halfway through.

The announcement goes out. The work is done. Every adviser still has every version of the plan, including the options that were rejected and the names on the lists.

It is quicker to send everything than to cut a version for each adviser, so the agency sees the cost model and the consultants see the names. Each version is another attachment, saved, printed and forwarded.

New people join on the adviser’s side and get the folder from a colleague. After the announcement, nobody asks for the papers back, and there is no way to take them.

A plan that leaks before it is ready, to staff, the press or a counterparty. Rejected options and personal details held by firms that no longer need them. And no record of who saw what, if you ever have to find out.

An NDA with each adviser is a legal promise, but nothing stops a copy being kept or forwarded. Code names and need to know lists say who should be told, not who actually got the files.

A shared folder with a password covers who can log in, not downloads, forwards and copies made before access ended. Asking for papers to be returned is a request, with no way to check, and copies stay in inboxes.

Put the papers in a room beside your own drive. Advisers are invited by email and open it with a link and an emailed code, with no accounts to create. Each person reads and agrees to the room’s NDA before anything opens, and you get a signed record.

Send the law firm the employment sections and the agency the announcement draft. Each gets a real file with the rest removed, not a hidden view of the whole pack. Documents carry a watermark with the reader’s name and the time, and copying text can be blocked.

Replace or take back a document, and remove an adviser when their part is done. On the closing date the room ends every share at once, and a reader whose access has ended sees that it has ended. You can see who was invited, who signed, and who opened what.

NakodaX can be installed on your own servers and works offline, so the papers and keys stay in house.

It cannot stop a screenshot or a photo of a screen. The watermark shows whose copy it was and when, and that is a strong reason not to.

A reader you let download a plain copy keeps that copy, so leave downloads protected for anything sensitive. The watermark and copy blocking apply to documents, not to video or audio.