Confidential text refers to the following information:

• Unencrypted data that is ultimately encrypted by VTAM® prior to transmission.
• Data carried on a session that an application has indicated should be considered confidential on the CONFTXT=YES parameter of the APPCCMD CONTROL=OPRCNTL,QUALIFY=ACTSESS macroinstruction.

On APPCCMD requests that do not use the HPDT interface, confidential text is treated specially by VTAM as follows:

• Confidential text data is not traced in the VTAM buffer trace.
• Any storage that VTAM allocates to hold confidential text is cleared after use during storage deallocation.

With HPDT, confidential text can reside in CSM storage, which can be allocated and deallocated by the application. The general rules for determining where the responsibility lies to clear CSM storage are as follows:

• If VTAM both allocates and deallocates CSM storage, VTAM ensures that the storage is cleared.
• If the application either allocates or deallocates the CSM storage, the application is responsible for clearing the storage as described in Application data clear responsibilities.