private, truly private Confluence space

[Consulente Atlassian]

is there a way to make a Confluence space private, really private? I mean is there a way to hide the pages of a Confluence space even from Confluence administrators but keep the Confluence administrators allowed to manage the space ?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

No.  To do their job, an administrator needs to be able to, well, do admin.  That includes the ability to change permissions in ways that could grant people (including the admin) the rights to see any page in the space.

[Consulente Atlassian]

@Nic Brough -Adaptavist- 

yes this is a big problem, a classic IT problem. My client would like to manage HR records for employees and obviously in that case a Confluence sysadmin could potentially see all the confidential notes of each employee in the company.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

No matter what you do, you have no choice but to trust your admins.  Even if you set up a separate Confluence, you'll still need to trust the administrators of that Confluence.

This is not a problem anyone solves by crippling people's ability to do their job, you need to have procedures and human controls in place to ensure you can trust your admins.

[Consulente Atlassian]

@Nic Brough -Adaptavist- in a nutshell is what I told my client. Few Confluence admins can be counted on the fingers of one hand. And trust.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Why are you (well, your client) giving admin access to people they can't trust?

[Consulente Atlassian]

@Nic Brough -Adaptavist- no, it's not that, it's that I come from a military background. Access information only if you have a need to know and only for as long as necessary. I expect this to work in enterprise applications. Lotus Domino for example already did this in 1986... you could administer permissions and content without having to see it.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I've worked in those environments too, and I can tell you that you need the people and processes to trust your admins.

Your example of Lotus Domino is no better than what Confluence can do.  If you're a Domino admin, you can always configure the system to allow yourself in.   You have to trust your admins.