Confluence gives you the choice to make the site as open or as closed as you wish. Here are some points to consider:
There are three levels of permissions in Confluence.
Global permissions are site-wide permissions, and are assigned by administrators:
System Administrator - Users with this permission can perform all the Confluence administrative functions. These users can assign permissions to other users.
For full details, please refer to the overview of global permissions in the Administrator's Guide.
The permission to create a new space or to administer one is granted by a Confluence Administrator from the global Administration Console.
Every space has its own independent set of permissions. These permissions determine the access settings for different users of the space. In order to assign these permissions to other users, a user must be a space administrator i.e. must have the 'Admin' permission for that space.
See Users and Groups to learn how these permissions are assigned.
Note: If you misconfigure a space so that nobody has access to administer it any more, a Confluence Administrator will need to fix the permissions for you.
You can set page-level restrictions, if you have the 'Restrict Pages' permission within the space concerned.
Page restrictions allow you to control who can view or edit individual pages. To set page restrictions, edit the page and use the page restriction options below the text-entry box.
Example: In the HR (Human Resources) space, everyone in the organisation has the 'View' space permission, but only the HR team has the 'Pages --> Create' space permission (i.e. the ability to create and edit pages in the space). A member of the HR team starts to create a new page called 'Annual Leave Policy'. Because the page is not yet finished, she sets the 'Viewing' page restriction so that only the HR team can view the page. When the page is finished, she will remove the 'Viewing' restriction so that everyone in the company can see the page.
Space permissions and page restrictions affect how links between pages are displayed to a visitor:
Links to attachments are also affected: If the visitor does not have permission to view the page to which the attachment is attached, the link will not be rendered.