Conflicts of interest “Knowledge held by a service provider about third parties can be restricted to that which is publicly available.” 1) Which parties do “third parties” refer to? 2) If “third parties” refer to customers, wouldn’t it be better to gather as much information as possible, beyond the public realm of information, to have a deep understanding of customer needs? 3) Furthermore, how does conflict of interest arise if we have an intimate understanding of customer’s background?
The "third parties" here aren't customers. Imagine a consultancy providing a service to the trustees of a pension scheme, a third party here might be the sponsor of the scheme. Knowledge about the third party would be limited to that which is only publicly known.
