How to trust freelancers?

Question

Freelance

There is an active MI with a well-established database of clients, sales, and other confidential and commercial information. It is required to make a list of functional improvements. How can you safely entrust this work to a freelancer without fear of information leakage?
I believe that you can move the store to another server, delete clients and orders there, change passwords and you can safely hire a freelancer. I just didn’t figure out how to effectively compare two sites for changes and then transfer them. Or maybe there is a ready-made solution for such tasks, so as not to reinvent the wheel?

Answer 1

Freelancers work every day with other people's sites with confidential information; they are not interested in this data. Yes, you can get smart and endure all this separately, but only complicate life for yourself and the freelancer and in the end still give him access to the main server in order to implement changes all the same.

Answer 2

Nobody needs your data. Stop thinking that everyone around you wants to deceive you.
If freelancers stole / leaked information, then no one would work with them.
>I believe that you can move the store to another server, delete clients and orders there, change passwords and you can safely hire a freelancer.
Only then will you transfer everything yourself and make all the necessary settings. And if something does not work - I will send you far away, as I have done the work.
From my previous answer to a similar question:
Do you also ask the doctor to examine you in clothes, without taking your hands out of your pockets and at a distance of 20 km?

Answer 3

Could be a little easier. Create a test/development database. The store will remain the same, but the data will be different. Or do you want to edit directly on the combat server?

Answer 4

Don't be paranoid.
If you want to see the changes later, then git will help you, or just diff two folders.
I also freelance on servers, the Ministry of Internal Affairs also invites, well, nothing, I didn’t leak the database :)

Answer 5

I would solve a similar problem by looking for a proven IT specialist to take configs from the database outside the application, create a test database and move the entire project to git / mercurial for work. Then everything is delegated to a third-party developer. After work - the reverse process of deploying to the combat server.
But IMHO it's overkill. The base is more profitable / easier to sell to someone who works with it and is aware of which of the competitors will be interested in this base. The left freelancer is purple about what you have stored there.
You can also sign an NDA for your own peace of mind.

Answer 6

NDA + freelancer with IP.

Answer 7

You can create two test environments. The first will be a test database, and a freelancer will work there. On the second environment there will be a copy of the combat database, there you yourself test that everything works, and do not let the freelancer. After that, roll out to the combat location.
NDA, I don't think it's worth it. If something comes up, it will take longer to figure it out and punish you than you lose customers.

Answer 8

There are standard rules of work in this case.
All code must be in the git version control system and probably hosted on github.
You can see all the changes that the programmer makes and be sure that there are no bookmarks there.
There should be no confidential data on the test server.
The presence of an individual entrepreneur and an agreement does not protect you in any way from the theft of available data, I think this is such a moment as to calm yourself down, how to blow on the wound and it hurts less.

Answer 9

Draw up an agreement with an individual entrepreneur or as with an individual, attribute all the restrictions in it, in case of violation - to the court. But it all depends on the cost of information, if it exceeds legal costs, the only question is the desire to preserve the reputation. But any company in this regard carries the same danger.